LIBEAEY 

01     mi. 

Theological    Seminary, 

PRINCETON,     N.    J. 


<  as 


BX    8915     .C53    1847 


Chalmers,    Thomas,    1780-1847 
's'/'"   Miscellanies 

Boc 


^JSi&tfiuu    " 


CHALMERS'    MISCELLANIES. 


MISCELLANIES; 


EMBRACING 


REVIEWS,  ESSAYS,  AND  ADDRESSES. 


BY   THE    LATE 


THOMAS  CHALMERS,  D.D.   &  LL.D. 


NEW    YORK: 

ROBERT    CARTER,     58    CANAL    STREET; 
PITTSBURG:    56    MARKET    STREET. 

1847. 


I 


CONTENTS. 


VVWA^S^ 


PAGE. 

Memoir  of  Dr.  Chalmers 5 

A  Sermon,  Preached  in  Morningside  Free  Church,  June  6,  1847,  being  the  Sab- 
bath immediately  after  the  funeral  of  Thomas  Chalmers,  D.D.,  by  the  Rev.  John 
Bruce,  A.M 25 

The  Example  of  our  Saviour  a  Guide  and  an  Authority  in  the  Establishment  of 
Charitable  Institutions 33 

On  the  necessity  of  uniting  Prayer  with  Performance  for  the  Success  of  Missions .     52 

The  Influence  of  Parochial  Associations  for  the  Moral  and  Spiritual  Good  of  Man- 
kind      64 

On  the  Consistency  of  the  Legal  and  Voluntary  Principles,  and  the  Joint  Support 
which  they  might  render  to  the  Cause  both  of  Christian  and  Common  Education     84 

/Considerations  on  the  System  of  Parochial  Schools  in  Scotland,  and  on  the  Advan- 
tage of  Establishing  them  in  Large  Towns   100 

On  the  Technical  Nomenclature  of  Theology ;  being  the  Substance  of  an  Argument 
contributed  to  "The  Christian  Instructor"  in  1813       ......  115 

On  the  Efficacy  of  Missions,  as  conducted  by  the  Moravians ;  being  the  Substance 
of  an  Argument  contributed  to  "The  Eclectic  Review"  in  1815   ....  130 

On  the  Style  and  Subjects  of  the  Pulpit;  being  the  Substance  of  an  Argument  con- 
tributed to  "The  Christian  Instructor"  in  1811     155 

On  the  Difference  between  Spoken  and  Written  Language ;  being  the  Subject  of 
an  Argument  contributed  to  "  The  Eclectic  Review"  in  1816       .  168 

Remarks  on  Cuvier's  Theory  of  the  Earth,  in  Extracts  from  a  Review  of  that  Theory 
which  was  contributed  to  "The  Christian  Instructor"  in  1814      ....  180 

Speech  delivered  in  the  General  Assembly  of  1833,  on  a  Proposed  Modification  of 
the  Law  of  Patronage 194 

A  Few  Thoughts  on  the  Abolition  of  Colonial  Slavery 205 

Introductory  Essay  to  The  Imitation  of  Christ ;  in  Three  Books.  By  Thomas  a 
Kempis 213 

Introductory  Essay  to  Treatises  on  the  Life,  Walk,  and  Triumph  of  Faith.  By  the 
Rev.  W.  Romaine,  A.M 220 

Introductory  Essay  to  The  Christian  Remembrancer.     By  Ambrose  Serle,  Esq.      .  230 

Introductory  Essay  to  the  Christian's  Great  Interest.  In  Two  Parts.  By  the  Rev. 
William  Guthrie" 242 

Introductory  Essay  to  The  Grace  and  Duty  of  being  Spiritually  Minded,  Declared, 
,    and  Practically  Improved.     By  John  Owen,  D.D 251 

Introductory  Essay  to  Call  to  the  Unconverted ;  Now  or  Never;  and  Fifty  Reasons. 
By  Richard  Baxter 266 

Introductory  Essay  to  the  Christian's  Daily  Walk  in  Holy  Security  and  Peace.  By 
the  Rev.  Henry  Scudder 285 

Introductory  Essay  to  Tracts,  by  the  Rev.  Thomas  Scott,  Rector  of  Aston  Sandford  299 
Introductory  Essay  to  Private  Thoughts  on  Religion  and  a  Christian  Life.     By 
William  Beveridge,  D.D 318 


iv  CONTENTS. 

PAGE. 

Introductory  Essay  to  the  Reign  of  Grace,  from  its  Rise  to  its  Consummation.  By 
Abraham  Booth  .  332 

Introductory  Essay  to  Serious  Reflections  on  Time  and  Eternity.  By  John  Shower. 
And  On  the  Consideration  of  our  Latter  End,  and  other  Contemplations.  By  Sh 
Mathew  Hale,  Knt 347 

Introductory  Essay  to  the  Christian's  Defence  against  Infidelity.  Consisting  of, 
1.  Leslie's  Short  and  Easy  Method  with  the  Deists.  2.  Lyttleton's  Observations 
on  St.  Paul.  3.  Doddridge's  Evidences  of  Christianity.  4.  Bates  on  the  Divin- 
ity of  The  Christian  Religion.  5.  Owen  on  the  Self-evidencing  Light  of  Scripture. 
6.  Baiter  on  the  Danger  of  Making  Light  of  Christ 360 

Introductory  Essay  to  the  Living  Temple ;  or,  a  Good  Man  the  Temple  of  God. 
By  the  Rev.  John  Howe.  A.M 379 

Introductory  Essay  to  Select  Letters  of  the  Rev.  William  Romaine,  A.M.      .        .  398 

Introductory  Essay  to  a  Treatise  on  the  Faith  and  influence  of  the  Gospel.  By 
the  Rev.  Archibald  Hall 409 

Distinction,  both  in  Principle  and  Effect,  between  a  Legal  Charity  for  the  Relief 
of  Indigence,  and  a  Legal  Charity  for  the  Relief  of  Disease       ....  424 

An  Historical  and  Critical  view  of  the  Speculative  Philosophy  of  Europe  in  the 
Nineteenth  Century.    By  J.  D.  Morell,  A.M 446 

Political  Economy  of  a  Famine .       .       .       .  503 


%Br 


BRIEF   MEMOIR  OF  DR,   CHALMERS. 


Thomas  Chalmers  was  born  at  Anstruther,  in  Fife,  on 
the  17th  of  March,  1780,  and  was  early  sent  to  study  at 
St.  Andrew's  University.  From  traditions  still  plentiful 
in  the  North,  his  college  career  must  have  been  distin- 
guished by  some  of  his  subsequent  peculiarities — energy, 
good  humor,  companionableness,  and  ascendency  over 
others.  And  it  was  then  that  his  passion  for  the  physical 
sciences  was  first  developed.  He  studied  mathematics, 
chemistry,  and  some  branches  of  natural  history,  with 
more  than  youthful  enthusiasm,  and  with  such  success, 
that  besides  assisting  his  own  professor  he  made  a  nar- 
row escape  from  the  mathematical  chair  in  Edinburgh. 
For  these  early  pursuits  he  never  lost  a  lingering  taste, 
and  in  the  summer  holidays  of  his  mellow  age,  it  was  his 
delight  to  give  lectures  to  youthful  audiences  on  electricity 
and  the  laws  of  chemical  combination.  His  attainments 
in  these  fields  of  knowledge  were  not  those  of  a  mere 
amateur  ;  but  in  earlier  life  had  all  the  system  and  secu- 
rity of  an  accomplished  philosopher.  And  though  for 
some  years  they  engrossed  him  too  much,  they  after- 
wards helped  him  amazingly.  Mathematics  especially 
gave  him  the  power  of  severe  and  continuous  thinking ; 
and  enabled  him,  unseduced  by  a  salient  fancy,  to  follow 
each  recondite  speculation  to  its  curious  landing-place, 
and  each  high  argument  to  its  topmost  stronghold.     And 


VI  BRIEF    MEMOIR    OF    DR.    CHALMERS. 

whilst  this  stern  discipline  gave  a  stability  to  his  judgment 
and  a  steadiness  to  his  intellect,  such  as  few  men  of  exu- 
berant imagination  have  ever  enjoyed,  the  facts  and  laws 
of  the  natural  sciences  furnished  that  imagination  with  its 
appropriate  wealth.  They  supplied  the  imagery  often 
gorgeous  and  august,  sometimes  brilliant  and  dazzling,  by 
which  in  after  days  he  made  familiar  truths  grander  or 
clearer  than  they  had  ever  been  before ;  and,  linked  to- 
gether by  a  genius  mighty  in  analogies,  they  formed  the 
rope-ladder  by  which  he  scaled  pinnacles  of  dazzling  ele- 
vation, and  told  down  to  wondering  listeners,  the  new 
panorama  which  stretched  around  him.  Consecrated  and 
Christianized,  his  youthful  science  reappeared  and  was 
laid  on  the  altar  of  religion  in  the  Astronomical  Discourses 
and  Natural  Theology. 

The  first  place  where  he  exercised  his  ministry  was 
Cavers,  in  the  South  of  Scotland,  where  he  was  helper  to 
the  aged  minister.  It  was  here  that  he  made  the  ac- 
quaintance of  Charters  of  Wilton — a  minister  remarkable 
for  this,  that  he  did  not  preach  anything  which  he  did  not 
understand.  He  did  not  fully  understand  the  Gospel,  and 
he  did  not  fully  preach  it ;  but  those  moral  truths  and  per- 
sonal duties  which  he  did  comprehend,  he  enforced  with 
a  downrightness,  a  simplicity  and  minuteness  which  can- 
not be  sufficiently  admired.  To  latest  existence  Dr. 
Chalmers  retained  a  profound  respect  for  the  practical 
wisdom  and  lively  sense  of  this  Scottish  Epictetus  ;  and 
though  it  is  comparing  the  greater  with  the  less,  those 
who  have  heard  him  in  his  more  familiar  sermons — dis- 
coursing the  matter  with  a  village  audience,  or  breaking 
it  down  to  the  unlettered  hearers  of  the  West  Port  or  the 
Dean — were  just  listening  to  old  Charters  of  Wilton,  re- 
vived in  a  more  affectionate  and  evangelical  version. 

In  May,  1803,  he  was  settled  in  the  rural  parish  of  Kil- 
many.  This  was  to  his  heart's  content.  It  brought  him 
back  to  his  native  county.     It  gave  him  an  abundance  of 


BRIEF    MEMOIR    OF    DR.   CHALMERS.  Vll 

leisure.  It  brought  him  near  the  manse  of  Flisk,  and  be- 
side a  congenial  and  distinguished  naturalist.  It  was  the 
country,  with  the  clear  stars  above  and  the  glorious  hills 
around  him  ;  and  it  allowed  him  to  wander  all  day  long, 
hammer  in  hand  and  botanical  box  on  his  shoulders,  chip- 
ping the  rocks,  and  ransacking  the  glens,  and  cultivating 
a  kindly  acquaintance  with  the  outlandish  peasantry. 
But  all  this  while,  though  a  minister,  he  was  ignorant  of 
essential  Christianity.  There  was  in  nature  much  that 
pleased  his  taste,  and  he  knew  very  well  the  quickened 
step  and  the  glistening  eye  of  the  eagle  collector,  as  he 
pounces  on  some  rare  crystal  or  quaint  and  novel  flower. 
But  as  yet  no  Bible  text  had  made  his  bosom  flutter,  and 
he  had  not  hidden  in  his  heart  sayings  which  he  had  de- 
tected with  delight  and  treasured  up  like  pearls.  And 
though  his  nature  was  genial  and  benevolent — though  he 
had  his  chosen  friends  and  longed  to  elevate  his  parish- 
ioners to  a  higher  level  of  intelligence,  and  domestic  com- 
fort, and  virtuous  enjoyment — he  had  not  discovered  any 
Being  possessed  of  such  paramount  claims  and  over- 
whelming attractions  as  to  make  it  end  enough  to  live 
and  labor  for  His  sake.  But  that  discovery  he  made 
while  writing  for  an  Encyclopaedia  an  article  on  Christi- 
anity. The  death  of  a  relation  is  said  to  have  saddened 
his  mind  into  more  than  usual  though tfulness,  and  whilst 
engaged  in  the  researches  which  his  task  demanded,  the 
scheme  of  God  was  manifested  to  his  astonished  under- 
standing, and  the  Son  of  God  was  revealed  to  his  admir- 
ing and  adoring  affections.  The  Godhead  imbodied  in 
the  person  and  exemplified  in  the  life  of  the  Saviour,  the 
remarkable  arrangement  for  the  removal  and  annihilation 
of  sin,  a  gratuitous  pardon  as  the  germ  of  piety  and  the 
secret  of  spiritual  peace — these  truths  flung  a  brightness 
over  his  field  of  view,  and  accumulated  in  wonder  and 
endearment  round  the  Redeemer's  person.  He  found 
himself  in  sudden  possession  of  an  instrument  potent  to 


Vlll  BRIEF    MEMOIR    OF    DR.    CHALMERS. 

touch,  and,  in  certain  circumstances,  omnipotent  to  trans- 
form the  hearts  of  men  ;  and  exulted  to  discover  a  Friend 
all-worthy  and  divine,  to  whom  he  might  dedicate. his 
every  faculty,  and  in  serving  whom  he  would  most  effect- 
ually subserve  the  widest  good  of  man.  And  ignorant  of 
their  peculiar  phraseology,  almost  ignorant  of  their  his- 
tory, by  the  direct  door  of  the  Bible  itself  he  landed  on 
the  theology  of  the  Reformers  and  the  Puritans  ;  and  ere 
ever  he  was  aware,  his  quickened  and  concentrated  facul- 
ties were  intent  on  reviving  and  ennobling  the  old  Evan- 
gelism. 

The  heroism  with  which  he  avowed  his  change,  and 
the  fervor  with  which  he  proclaimed  the  newly-discovered 
Gospel,  made  a  mighty  stir  in  the  quiet  country  around 
Kilmany  ;  and  at  last  the  renown  of  this  upland  Boa- 
nerges began  to  spread  over  Scotland,  till,  in  1815,  the 
Town  Council  of  Glasgow  invited  him  to  come  and  be 
the  minister  of  their  Tron  Church  and  parish.  He  came, 
and  in  that  city  for  eight  years  sustained  a  series  of  the 
most  brilliant  arguments  and  overpowering  appeals  in  be- 
half of  vital  godliness  which  devotion  has  ever  kindled  or 
eloquence  ever  launched  into  the  flaming  atmosphere  of 
human  thought.  And  though  the  burning  words  and  me- 
teor fancies  were  to  many  no  more  than  a  spectacle — the 
crash  and  sparkle  of  an  illumination  which  exploded 
weekly,  and  lit  up  the  Tron  Church  into  a  dome  of  col- 
ored fire — they  were  designed  by  their  author,  and  they 
told  like  a  weekly  bombardment.  Into  the  fastnesses  of 
aristocratic  hauteur  and  commercial  self-sufficiency — into 
the  airy  battlements  of  elegant  morality  and  irreligious 
respectability,  they  sent  showering  the  junipers  of  hot 
conviction  ;  and  in  hundreds  of  consciences  were  mighty 
to  the  pulling  down  of  strong-holds.  And  though  the 
effort  was  awful — though  in  each  paroxysmal  climax,  as 
his  aim  pointed  more  and  yet  more  loftily,  he  poured  forth 
his  very  soul — for  the  Gospel,  and  love  to  men,  and  zeal 


BRIEF    MEMOIR    OF    DR.    CHALMERS.  IX 

for  God  now  mingled  with  his  being,  and  formed  his  tem- 
perament, his  genius,  and  his  passion — though  he  himself 
was  his  own  artillery,  and  in  these  self-consuming  sermons 
was  rapidly  blazing  away  that  holocaust — himself — the 
effort  was  sublimely  successful.  In  the  cold  philosophy 
of  the  Eastern  capital  and  the  coarse  earthliness  of  the 
Western  a  breach  was  effected,  and  in  its  Bible  dimen- 
sions and  its  sovereign  insignia  the  Gospel  triumphant 
went  through.  Though  the  labors  of  Love  and  Balfour 
had  been  blessed  to  the  winning  of  many,  it  was  not  till 
in  the  might  of  commanding  intellect  and  consecrated  rea- 
son Chalmers  came  up — it  was  not  till  then  that  the  cita- 
del yielded,  and  evangelical  doctrine  effected  its  lodgment 
in  the  meditative  and  active  mind  of  modern  Scotland ; 
and  whatever  other  influences  may  have  worked  together, 
it  was  then  and  there  that  the  battle  of  a  vitalized  Chris- 
tianity was  fought  and  won.  Patrons  converted  or  over- 
awed, evangelical  majorities  in  Synods  and  Assemblies, 
Church  of  Scotland  Missions,  the  two  hundred  additional 
chapels,  the  Disruption,  the  Free  Church,  an  earnest  min- 
istry and  a  liberal  laity,  are  the  trophies  of  this  good  sol- 
dier, and  the  splendid  results  of  that  Glasgow  campaign. 

From  that  high  service,  worn,  but  not  wTeary,  he  was 
fain  to  seek  relief  in  an  academic  retreat.  Again  his  na- 
tive county  offered  an  asylum,  and  in  the  University  of 
St.  Andrew's,  and  its  chair  of  Moral  Philosophy,  he  spent 
five  years  of  calmer  but  not  inglorious  toil.  Omitting  that 
psychology,  which  in  Scottish  colleges  is  the  great  staple 
of  moral  philosophy  lectures,  with  his  characteristic  in- 
tentness  he  advanced  direct  to  those  prime  questions  which 
affect  man  as  a  responsible  being,  and  instead  of  dried  spe- 
cimens from  ancient  cabinets,  instead  of  those  smoked  and 
dusty  virtues  which  have  lain  about  since  the  time  of 
Socrates  and  Seneca — instead  of  withered  maxims  from  a 
pagan  text,  he  took  his  code  of  morals  fresh  from  Heav- 
en's statute-book.     It  is  not  enough  to  say,  that  into  his 

b2 


BRIEF    MEMOIR    OF    DR.    CHALMERS. 


system  of  morality  he  flung  all  his  heart  and  soul.  He 
threw  in  himself — but  he  threw  something  better — he 
threw  +he  Gospel,  and  for  the  first  time  in  a  Northern 
University  was  taught  an  evangelized  ethics — a  system 
with  a  motive  as  well  as  a  rule — a  system  instinct  with 
the  love  of  God,  and  buoyant  with  noble  purposes.  And 
in  the  warm  atmosphere  of  his  crowded  class-room — 
caught  up  by  enthusiastic  and  admiring  listeners  the  con- 
tagion spread  ;  and  as  they  passed  from  before  his  chair, 
the  elite  of  Scottish  youth,  Urquhart,  Duff,  and  Adam, 
issued  forth  on  the  world,  awake  to  the  chief  end  of  man, 
and  sworn  to  life-long  labors  in  the  cause  of  Christ. 
Too  often  a  school  for  sceptics — when  Chalmers  was  pro- 
fessor, the  ethic  class  became  a  mission  college — the  cita- 
del of  living  faith,  and  the  metropolis  of  active  philan- 
throphy  ;  and  whilst  every  intellect  expanded  to  the  vast- 
ness  and  grandeur  of  his  views,  every  susceptible  spirit 
carried  away  a  holy  and  generous  impulse  from  his  own 
noble  and  transfusive  nature. 

And  then  they  took  him  to  Edinburgh  College,  and 
made  him  Professor  of  Theology.  In  the  old-established 
times  this  was  the  top  of  the  pyramid — the  highest  post 
which  Presbyterian  Scotland  knew — and  like  Newton  to 
the  Mathematic  chair  in  Cambridge,  his  pre-eminent  fit- 
ness bore  Chalmers  into  the  Edinburgh  chair  of  divinity. 
And  perhaps  that  Faculty  never  owned  such  a  combina- 
tion as  the  colleagues,  Welsh  and  Chalmers.  Alike  men 
of  piety — alike  men  of  lofty  integrity,  and  in  their  public 
career  distinguished  by  immaculate  purity — the  genius 
and  talents  of  the  one  were  a  supplement  to  those  of  the 
other.  Popular  and  impassioned — a  declaimer  in  the 
desk,  and  often  causing  his  class-room  to  ring  again  with 
the  fine  phrensy  of  his  eloquence,  Chalmers  was  the  man 
of  power.  Academic  and  reserved — adhering  steadfastly 
to  the  severe  succession  of  his  subjects,  and  handling  them 
earnestly  but  calmly — Welsh  was  the  man  of  system. 


BRIEF    MEMOIR   OF    DR.    CHALMERS.  XI 

Ideal  and  impetuous,  the  one  beheld  the  truth  imbodied 
in  some  glorious  fancy,  and  as  the  best  and  briefest  argu- 
ment tore  the  curtain  and  bade  you  look  and  see.  Con- 
templative and  cautious,  the  other  was  constantly  reject- 
ing the  illustrations  which  pass  for  arguments,  and  put- 
ting the  staff  of  his  remorseless  logic  through  the  illusions 
of  poetry  when  substituted  for  the  deductions  of  reason  or 
the  statements  of  history.  Sanguine  and  strenuous,  the 
one  was  impatient  of  doubts  and  delays ;  and  if  reasoning 
failed  had  recourse  to  rhetoric ; — if  the  regular  passage- 
boat  refused  his  dispatches,  he  at  once  bound  them  to  a 
rocket  and  sent  them  right  over  the  river.  Patient  and 
acute,  the  other  was  willing  to  wait,  and  was  confident 
that  truth  if  understood  must  sooner  or  later  win  the  day. 
Ardent  and  generous,  the  panegyric  of  the  one  was  an  in- 
spiring cordial ;  vigilant  and  faithful,  the  criticism  of  the 
other  was  a  timely  caveat.  A  man  of  might,  the  one 
sought  to  deposit  great  principles,  and  was  himself  the 
example  of  great  exploits.  A  man  of  method,  the  other 
was  minute  in  his  directions,  and  painstaking  in  his  les- 
sons, and  frequent  in  his  rehearsals  and  reviews.  The 
one  was  the  man  of  grandeur ;  the  other  the  man  of  grace. 
The  one  was  the  valcano  ;  the  other  was  the  verdure  on 
its  side.  The  one  was  the  burning  light ;  the  other  the 
ground-glass  which  made  it  softer  shine.  Each  had  his 
own  tint  and  magnitude  ;  but  the  two  close-united  made 
a  double  star,  which  looked  like  one ;  and  now  that  they 
have  set  together,  who  will  venture  to  predict  the  rising 
of  such  another  1 

For  thirty  years  it  had  been  the  great  labor  of  Dr. 
Chalmers  to  popularize  the  Scottish  Establishment.  A 
religion  truly  national,  enthroned  in  the  highest  places, 
and  a  beatific  inmate  in  the  humblest  homes — a  Church 
which  all  the  people  loved,  and  which  provided  for  them 
all — a  Church  with  a  king  for  its  nursing  father,  and  a 
nation   for  its  members — this  was   the  splendid  vision 


Xll  BRIEF    MEMOIR    OF    DR.    CHALMERS. 

which  he  had  once  seen  in  Isaiah,  and  longed  to  behold 
in  Scotland.  It  was  to  this  that  the  herculean  exertions 
of  the  pastor,  and  anon  the  professor,  tended.  By  his 
great  ascendency  he  converted  the  populous  and  plebeian 
parish  of  St.  John's  into  an  isolated  district — with  an  elder 
and  a  deacon  to  every  family,  and  a  Sabbath  school  for 
every  child — and  had  well  nigh  banished  pauperism  from 
within  its  borders.  And  though  it  stood  a  reproachful 
oasis,  only  shaming  the  wastes  around  it,  his  hope  and 
prayer  had  been  that  its  order  and  beauty  would  have 
said  to  other  ministers  and  sessions,  Go  ye  and  do  like- 
wise. And  then  the  whole  drift  of  his  prelections  was  to 
send  his  students  forth  upon  the  country  ardent  evange- 
lists and  affectionate  pastors — indoctrinated  with  his  own 
extensive  plans,  and  inflamed  with  his  own  benevolent 
purposes.  And  then,  when  for  successive  years  he  cru- 
saded the  country,  begging  from  the  rich  200  churches 
for  the  poor,  and  went  up  to  London  to  lecture  on  the  es- 
tablishment and  extension  of  Christian  Churches,  it  was 
still  the  same  golden  future — a  Church  national  but  Chris- 
tian, endowed  but  independent,  established  but  free — 
which  inspirited  his  efforts,  and  awoke  from  beneath  their 
ashes  the  fires  of  earlier  days.  And  when  at  last  the  de- 
lusion of  a  century  was  dissolved— when  the  courts  of  law 
changed  their  own  mind,  and  revoked  the  liberty  of  the 
Scottish  Church — much  as  he  loved  its  old  establishment 
— much  as  he  loved  his  Edinburgh  professorship,  and 
much  more  as  he  loved  his  200  churches — with  a  single 
movement  of  his  pen  he  signed  them  all  away.  He  had 
reached  his  grand  climacteric,  and  many  thought  that, 
smitten  down  by  the  shock,  his  gray  hairs  would  descend 
in  sorrow  to  the  grave.  It  was  time  for  him  "  to  break 
his  mighty  heart  and  die."  But  they  little  knew  the  man. 
They  forgot  that  spirit  which,  like  the  trodden  palm,  had 
so  often  sprung  erect  and  stalwart  frqm  a  crushing  over- 
throw     We  saw  him  that  November.     We  saw  him  in 


BRIEF    MEMOIR    OF    DR.    CHALMERS.  xiii 

its  Convocation — the  sublimest  aspect  in  which  we  ever 
saw  the  noble  man.  The  ship  was  fast  aground,  and  as 
they  looked  over  the  bulwarks,  through  the  mist  and  the 
breakers,  all  on  board  seemed  anxious  and  sad.  Never 
had  they  felt  prouder  of  their  old  first-rate,  and  never  had 
she  ploughed  a  braver  path  than  when — contrary  to  all 
the  markings  in  the  chart,  and  all  the  experience  of  former 
voyages — she  dashed  on  this  fatal  bar.  The  stoutest  were 
dismayed,  and  many  talked  of  taking  to  the  fragments, 
and,  one  by  one,  trying  for  the  nearest  shore ;  when 
calmer  because  of  the  turmoil,  and  with  the  exultation  of 
one  who  saw  safety  ahead,  the  voice  of  this  dauntless 
veteran  was  heard  propounding  his  confident  scheme. 
Cheered  by  his  assurance,  and  inspired  by  his  example, 
they  set  to  work,  and  that  dreary  winter  was  spent  in 
constructing  a  vessel  with  a  lighter  draught  and  a  simpler 
rigging,  but  large  enough  to  carry  every  true-hearted  man 
who  ever  trod  the  old  ship's  timbers.  Never  did  he  work 
more  blithely,  and  never  was  there  more  of  athletic  ardor 
in  his  looks  than  during  the  six  months  that  this  ark  was 
a  building — though  every  stroke  of  the  mallet  told  of 
blighted  hopes  and  defeated  toil,  and  the  unknown  sea 
before  him.  And  when  the  signal-psalm  announced  the 
new  vessel  launched,  and  leaving  the  old  galley  high 
and  dry  on  the  breakers,  the  banner  unfurled,  and  showed 
the  covenanting  blue  still  spotless,  and  the  symbolic  bush 
still  burning,  few  will  forget  the  renovation  of  his  youth 
and  the  joyful  omen  of  his  shining  countenance.  It  was 
not  only  the  rapture  of  his  prayers,  but  the  radiance  of 
his  spirit  which  repeated  "  God  is  our  Refuge."*  It  is 
something  heart-stirring  to  see  the  old  soldier  take  the 
field,  or  the  old  trader  exerting  every  energy  to  retrieve 
his  shattered  fortunes  ;  but  far  the  finest  spectacle  of  the 
moulting  eagle  was  Chalmers  with  his  hoary  locks  begin- 
ning life  anew.     But  indeed  he  was  not  old.     They  who 

*  The  psalm  with  which  the  Free  Assembly  opened. 


XIV  BRIEF    MEMOIR    OF    DR.    CHALMERS. 

can  fill  their  veins  with  every  hopeful  healthful  thing 
around  them — those  who  can  imbibe  the  sunshine  of  the 
future,  and  transfuse  life  from  realities  not  come  as  yet — 
their  blood  need  never  freeze.  And  his  bosom  heaved 
With  all  the  newness  of  the  Church's  life  and  all  the  big- 
ness of  the  Church's  plans.  And,  best  of  all,  those  who 
wait  upon  the  Lord  are  always  young.  This  was  the 
reason  why,  on  the  morning  of  that  Exodus,  he  did  not 
totter  forth  from  the  old  Establishment  a  blank  and  palsy- 
stricken  man ;  but  with  flashing  eye  snatched  up  his 
palmer-staff,  and  as  he  stamped  it  on  the  ground  all  Scot- 
land shook,  and  answered  with  a  deep  God-speed  to  the 
giant  gone  on  pilgrimage. 

From  that  period  till  he  finished  his  course,  there  was 
no  fatigue  in  his  spirit  and  no  hesitation  in  his  gait.  Re- 
lieved from  hollow  plaudits  and  from  hampering  patro- 
nage, far  ahead  of  the  sycophants  who  used  to  raise  the 
worldly  dust  around  him,  and  surrounded  by  men  in  whose 
sincerity  and  intelligent  sympathy  his  spirit  was  refreshed, 
and  in  whose  wisdom  and  affection  he  confided  and  re- 
joiced, he  advanced  along  his  brightening  path,  with  up- 
rightness and  consistency  in  his  even  mien,  and  the  peace 
of  God  in  his  cheerful  countenance.  His  eye  was  not  dim 
nor  his  force  abated.  On  the  14th  of  May  we  passed 
our  last  morning  with  him.  It  was  his  first  visit  to  Lon- 
don after  the  Hanover  Square  Ovation,  nine  years  ago. 
But  there  were  now  no  coronets  nor  mitres  at  the  door. 
Besides  one  or  two  of  his  own  family,  J.  D.  Morell,  Bap- 
tist Noel,  and  Isaac  Taylor  were  his  guests.  And  he  was 
happy.  There  was  neither  the  exhaustion  of  past  ex- 
citement nor  the  pressure  of  future  engagements  and 
anxieties  in  his  look.  It  was  a  serene  and  restful  morn- 
ing, and  little  else  than  earnest  kindness  looked  through 
the  summer  of  his  eyes.  The  day  before,  he  had  given 
his  evidence  before  the  Sites'  Committee  of  the  House 
of  Commons,  and,  reminded  that,  according  to  the  days 


BRIEF    MEMOIR    OF    DR.    CHALMERS.  XV 

of  the  week,  it  was  twenty  years  that  day  since  he 
had  opened  Edward  Irving's  church,  most  of  the  con- 
versation reverted  to  his  early  friend.  There  was  a 
mildness  in  his  tone  and  a  sweetness  in  his  manner, 
and  we  could  now  almost  fancy  a  halo  around  his 
head  which  might  have  warned  us  of  what  was  coming. 
He  preached  all  the  Sabbaths  of  his  sojourn  in  England, 
willingly  and  powerfully,  and  on  the  last  Sabbath  of  May 
he  was  again  at  home.  That  evening  he  is  said  to  have 
remarked  to  a  friend  that  he  thought  his  public  work 
completed.  He  had  seen  the  Disruption  students  through 
the  four  years  of  their  course.  He  had  seen  the  Susten- 
tation  Fund  organized.  He  had  been  to  Parliament  and 
borne  his  testimony  in  high  places.  To-morrow  he  would 
give  in  the  College  Report  to  the  Free  Assembly ;  and 
after  that  he  hoped  to  be  permitted  to  retire  and  devote  to 
the  West  Port  poor  his  remaining  days.  He  was  willing 
to  decrease,  and  close  his  career  as  a  city  missionary. 
But  just  as  he  was  preparing  to  take  the  lower  room,  the 
Master  said,  "  Come  up  hither,"  and  took  him  up  beside 
himself.  Next  morning  all  that  met  the  gaze  of  love  was 
the  lifeless  form — in  stately  repose  on  the  pillow,  as  one 
who  beheld  it  said,  "  a  brow  not  cast  in  the  mould  of  the 
sons  of  men."  Like  his  friends,  Thomson,  M'Crie,  Welsh, 
and  Abercrombie,  that  stout  heart  which  had  worked  so 
hard  and  swelled  with  so  many  vast  emotions,  had  gently 
yielded,  and  to  his  ransomed  spirit  opened  heaven's  near- 
est portal. 

He  possessed  in  highest  measure  that  divinest  faculty 
of  spirit,  the  power  of  creating  its  own  world  ;  but  it  was 
not  a  poet  creating  worlds  to  look  at:  it  was  the  re- 
former and  philanthropist  in  haste  to  people  and  possess 
them.  His  was  the  working  earnestness  which  is  impa- 
tient till  its  conceptions  are  realities  and  its  hopes  im- 
bodied  in  results.  For  example,  he  took  his  idea  of 
Christianity,  not  from  books,  nor  from  its  living  sped- 


XVI  BRIEF    MEMOIR    OP    DR.    CHALMERS. 

mens  ;  for  the  Christianity  of  books  is  often  trite,  and  the 
Christianity  of  living  men  is  often  arrogant  and  vulgar  ; 
but  he  took  his  type  of  Christianity  from  his  Divine 
Original — benignant,  majestic,  and  God-like  as  he  found 
it  in  the  Bible — and  gave  this  refined  and  lofty  idea  per- 
petual presidency  in  his  congenial  Imagination.  And 
what  sort  of  place  was  that  ?  Why,  it  was  quite  peculiar. 
It  was  not  like  Jeremy  Taylor's — a  fairy  grotto  where 
you  looked  up  through  the  woodbine  ceiling  and  saw  the 
sky  with  its  moonlit  clouds  and  the  angels  moving  among 
them  ;  or  listed  the  far-off  waterfall  now  dying  like  an  old- 
world  melody,  or  swelling  powerfully  like  a  prophecy 
when  the  end  is  near.  Nor  was  it  like  Foster's — a  donjon 
on  a  frowning  steep — where  the  moat  wTas  black,  and  the 
winds  were  cold,  and  the  sounds  were  not  of  earth,  and 
iron  gauntlets  clanged  on  the  deaf  unheeding  door.  Nor 
was  it  his  favorite  Cowper's — a  cottage  with  its  summer 
joy,  where  the  swallow  nestled  in  the  eaves  and  the 
leveret  sported  on  the  floor — where  the  sunbeam  kissed 
the  open  Bible,  and  Homer  lay  below  the  table  till  the 
morning  hymn  was  sung.  Nor  was  it  the  Imagination 
of  his  dear  companion,  Edward  Irving — a  mountain-sanc- 
tuary at  even-tide,  where  the  spirits  of  his  sainted  sires 
would  come  to  him,  and  martyr  tunes  begin  to  float  through 
the  duskier  aisles,  and  giant  worthies  enter  from  the 
mossy  graves  and  fill  with  reverend  mien  the  ancient 
pews.  More  real  than  the  first — more  happy  than  the 
second — more  lordly  than  the  third,  it  was  more  modern 
and  more  lightsome  than  the  last.  It  was  a  mansion  airy, 
vast,  and  elegant — an  open  country  all  round  it  and  sun- 
shine all  through  it — not  crowded  with  curiosities  nor 
strewed  with  trinkets  and  toys — but  massy  in  its  propor- 
tions and  stately  in  its  ornaments — the  lofty  dwelling  of 
a  princely  mind.  And  into  this  imagination  its  happy 
owner  took  the  Gospel  and  inshrined  and  enthroned  it. 
That  Gospel  was  soon  the  better  Genius  of  the  place.     It 


BRIEF    MEMOIR    OF    DR.   CHALMERS.  XVII 

gave  the  aspect  of  broad  welcome  and  bright  expectation 
to  its  threshold.  It  shed  a  rose-tint  on  its  marble  and 
breathed  the  air  of  heaven  through  its  halls.  And  like  an 
Alhambra  with  a  seraph  for  its  occupant,  it  looked  forth 
from  the  lattice  brighter  than  the  noon  that  looked  in. 
Yes,  it  was  no  common  home  which  the  Gospel  found 
when  it  first  consecrated  that  lofty  mind  ;  and  it  was  no 
common  day  in  the  history  of  the  Church  when  that  spirit 
first  felt  the  dignity  and  gladness  of  this  celestial  inmate. 
Powers  and  resources  were  devoted  to  his  service — not 
needed  by  that  Gospel,  but  much  needed  by  Gospel-re- 
jecting man.  And,  not  to  specify  the  successive  offerings 
laid  at  its  feet  by  one  of  the  most  gifted  as  well  as  grate- 
ful of  devotees,  we  would  mention  his  Parochial  Sermons 
and  his  Astronomical  Discourses.  In  the  one  we  have 
the  Gospel  made  so  palpable  that  the  simplest  and  slow- 
est hardly  can  miss  it ;  in  the  other  we  find  it  made  so 
majestic  that  the  most  intellectual  and  learned  cannot  but 
admire  it.  In  the  one  we  have  Christianity  brought  down 
to  the  common  affairs  of  life ;  in  the  other  we  have  it  ex- 
alted above  the  heavens.  In  the  one  we  see  the  Gospel 
in  its  world- ward  direction,  and  starting  from  the  cradle 
at  Bethlehem,  follow  it  to  the  school  and  the  fireside  and 
the  dying  bed  ;  in  the  other  we  view  it  in  its  God- ward 
direction,  and  following  its  fiery  chariot  far  beyond  the 
galaxy,  lose  it  in  the  light  inaccessible.  In  the  one  we 
have  existence  evangelized ;  in  the  other  we  have  the 
Gospel  glorified.  The  one  is  the  primer  of  Christianity  ; 
the  other  is  its  epic. 

But  it  was  not  in  mere  sermons  that  his  imagination 
burned  and  shone.  His  schemes  of  beneficence — his  plans 
for  the  regeneration  of  his  country  took  their  vastness  and 
freshness  from  the  idealism  of  a  creative  mind.  At  first 
sight  they  had  all  the  look  of  a  romance — impossible, 
transcendental,  and  unreal.  And  had  the  inventive  talent 
been  his  only  faculty,  they  would  have  continued  roman- 

3 


XV111  BRIEF    MEMOIR    OF    DR.    CHALMERS. 

tic  projects  and  nothing  more  ; — a  new  Atlantis,  a  happy 
valley,  or  a  fairy-land.  And  if  he  had  been  like  most  men 
of  poetic  mood,  he  would  have  deprecated  any  attempt  to 
reduce  his  gorgeous  abstractions  to  dull  actualities.  But 
Chalmers  was  never  haunted  by  this  fear.  He  had  no 
fear  of  carnalizing  his  conceptions,  but  longed  to  see  them 
clothed  in  flesh  and  blood.  He  had  no  tenderness  for  his 
day-dreams,  but  would  rather  see  them  melt  away,  and 
leave  in  their  place  a  waking  world  as  good  and  lovely 
as  themselves.  Vivid  as  was  his  fancy,  his  working  fac- 
ulty was  no  less  vehement ;  and  his  constructive  instinct 
compelled  him  to  set  to  work  as  soon  as  the  idea  of  an 
institution  or  an  effort  had  once  fairly  filled  his  soul.  And 
these  exertions  he  made  with  an  intensity  as  irresistible 
as  it  was  contagious.  Like  the  statesman  who,  in  the 
union  of  a  large  philosophy  and  a  gorgeous  fancy,  was  his 
parallel* — he  might  have  divided  his  active  career  into 
successive  "  fits,"  or  "  manias," — a  preaching  fit,  a  pasto- 
ral fit,  a  fit  of  Church-reforming,  a  fit  of  Church-extend- 
ing. And  such  transforming  possessions  were  these  fits 
— so  completely  did  they  change  his  whole  nature  into 
the  image  of  the  object  at  which  he  aimed,  that  the  Apos- 
tle's words,  "  this  one  thing  I  do,"  he  might  have  altered 
to,  u  this  one  thing  I  am."  There  was  no  division  of  his 
strength — no  division  of  his  mind  ;  but  with  a  concentra- 
tion of  mighty  powers  which  made  the  spectacle  sublime, 
he  moved  to  the  onset  with  lip  compressed  and  massy 
tread,  and  victory  foreseen  in  the  glance  of  his  eagle  eye. 
And  like  all  men  of  overmastering  energy — like  all  men 
of  clear  conception  and  valiant  purpose — like  Nelson  and 
Napoleon,  and  others  born  to  be  commanders — over  and 
above  the  assurance  given  by  his  frequent  success,  there 
was  a  spell  in  his  audacity — a  fascination  in  his  sanguine 
chivalry.  Many  were  drawn  after  him,  carried  helpless 
captives  by  his  force  of  character ;  and  though,  at  first, 

*  Edmund  Burke. 


BRIEF    MEMOIR    OP    DR.    CHALMERS.  XIX 

many  found  that  it  required  some  faith  to  follow  him,  like 
the  great  genius  of  modern  warfare,  experience  showed 
that  for  moral  as  well  as  military  conquests,  there  may 
be  the  deepest  wisdom  in  dazzling  projects,  and  rapid 
movements,  and  reckless  daring.  It  was  owing  to  the 
width  of  his  field,  and  the  extent  of  his  future,  and,  above 
all,  the  greatness  of  his  faith,  that  he  was  the  most  ven- 
turesome of  philanthropists,  and  also  the  most  victorious. 
The  width  of  his  field — for  if  he  was  operating  on  St. 
John's,  he  had  his  eye  to  Scotland — if  he  was  making  an 
effort  on  his  own  Establishment,  he  had  an  eye  to  Chris- 
tendom. And  the  extent  of  his  future — for  every  man 
who  is  greater  than  his  coevals  is  a  vaticination  of  some 
age  to  come — and,  with  Chalmers,  the  struggle  was  to 
speed  this  generation  on  and  bring  it  abreast  of  that  wiser 
and  holier  epoch  of  which  he  himself  was  the  precocious 
denizen.  And  the  greatness  of  his  faith — for  he  believed 
that  whatever  is  scriptural  is  politic.  He  believed  that 
whatever  is  in  the  Bible  will  yet  be  in  the  world.  And 
he  believed  that  all  things  were  coming  which  God  has 
promised,  and  that  all  things  are  practicable  which  God 
bids  us  perform. 

But  we  shall  misrepresent  the  man,  unless  the  prime 
feature  in  our  memory's  picture  be  his  wondrous  good- 
ness. It  was  not  so  much  in  his  capacious  intellect,  or 
his  soaring  fancy,  that  he  surpassed  all  his  fellows,  as  in 
his  mighty  heart.  Big  to  begin  with,  the  Gospel  made  it 
expand  till  it  took  in  the  human  family.  "  Good- will  to 
man"  was  the  inscription  on  his  serene  and  benignant 
countenance ;  and  if  at  times  the  shadow  of  some  inward 
anxiety  darkened  it,  or  the  cloud  of  a  momentary  dis- 
pleasure lowered  over  it,  all  that  was  needful  to  brighten 
it  into  its  wonted  benignity,  was  the  sight  of  something 
human.  Deeply  impressed  with  our  nature's  wrong  estate 
— a  firm  and  sorrowful  believer  in  its  depravity  and  des- 
perate wickedness — the  sadness  of  his  creed  gave  nothing 


XX  BRIEF    MEMOIR    OF    DR.    CHALMERS. 

bitter  to  his  spirit  and  nothing  sombre  to  his  bearing. 
Like  Him  who  best  knew  what  was  in  man,  but  who 
was  so  bent  on  making  him  better,  that  the  kindness  of 
his  errand  counteracted  the  keenness  of  his  intuition,  and 
filled  his  mouth  with  gracious  words — there  was  so  much 
inherent  warmth  in  his  temperament,  and  so  much  of 
heaven-imparted  kindliness  in  his  Christianity,  that  love 
to  man  was  his  vital  air,  and  good  offices  to  man  his  daily 
bread.  And  how  was  his  ruling  passion — how  was  his 
philanthropy  displayed?  Not  in  phrases  of  ecstatic  fond- 
ness—for though  a  citizen  of  the  world  he  was  also  a 
Scotchman — in  the  region  of  the  softer  feelings  seques- 
tered, proud  and  shy — and,  except  the  "  my  dear  sir,"  of 
friendly  talk,  and  the  cordial  shake  of  eager  recognition, 
lie  was  saving  of  the  commonplace  expressions  of  endear- 
ment, and  did  not  depreciate  friendship's  currency  by  too 
lavish  employment  of  its  smaller  coin.  He  must  have 
been  a  special  friend  to  whom  he  subscribed  himself  as 
anything  more  addicted  than  "  Yours  very  truly."  Nor 
did  his  warmth  come  out  in  tears  of  tenderness  and  the 
usual  utterances  of  wounded  feeling  ;  for  in  these  he  was 
not  so  profuse  and  prompt  as  many.  How  did  it  appear? 
On  a  wintry  day,  how  do  we  know  that  the  hidden  stove 
is  lit,  but  because  the  frost  on  the  panes  is  thawing,  and 
life  is  tingling  back  into  our  dead  fingers  and  leaden  feet? 
And  it  was  by  the  glowr  that  spread  around  wherever  Dr. 
Chalmers  entered, — by  thegayety  which  sparkled  in  every 
eye  and  the  happiness  which  bounded  in  every  breast, — 
by  the  mellow  temperature  to  which  the  atmosphere  sud- 
denly ascended, — it  was  by  this  that  you  recognized  your 
nearness  to  a  focus  of  philanthropy.  How  did  it  appear  ? 
How  do  we  know  that  that  huge  Newfoundland,  pacing 
leisurely  about  the  lawn,  has  a  propensity  for  saving 
drowning  people,  but  just  because  the  moment  yon  play- 
ing child  capsizes  into  the  garden  pond,  he  plunges  after, 
midlands  him  dripping  on  the  gravel?     And  it  was  by 


BRIEF    MEMOIR    OF    DR.    CHALMERS.  XXI 

the  instinctive  bound  with  which  he  .sprang  to  the  relief 
of  misery, — the  importunity  with  which,  despite  his  popu- 
lation and  his  pauper  theories,  he  entreated  for  such  emer- 
gencies as  the  Highland  distress,  and  the  liberality  with 
which  he  relieved  the  successive  cases  of  poverty  and  woe 
that  came  to  his  private  ear  and  eye, — it  was  because 
wherever  grief  or  suffering  was,  there  was  Dr.  Chalmers 
that  you  knew  him  to  be  a  man  of  sympathies.  But  you 
might  know  it  in  other  ways.  Read  the  five-and-twenty 
volumes  of  his  works,  and  say  what  are  they  but  a  maga- 
zine of  generous  thoughts  for  the  elevation,  and  genial 
thoughts  for  the  comfort  of  mankind  1  What  are  they 
but  a  collection  of  pleadings  with  power  on  the  behalf  of 
weakness ;  with  opulence  on  the  behalf  of  penury ;  with 
Christian  intelligence  on  the  behalf  of  outcast  ignorance 
and  home-grown  paganism  ? — What  are  they  but  a  series 
of  the  most  skilful  prescriptions  for  moral  misery, — a  good 
and  wise  physician's  legacy  to  a  disordered  world,  wrhicli 
he  dearly  loved  and  did  his  best  to  heal  1  And  what  was 
the  succession  of  his  services  during  the  last  thirty  years  ? 
For  what,  short  of  God's  glory,  but  the  good  of  man,  was 
he  spending  his  intellect,  his  ascendency  over  others,  his 
constitution,  and  his  time  1  We  have  spoken  of  his  co- 
lossal strength  and  his  naming  energy ;  and  the  idea  we 
now  retain  of  his  life-long  career  is  just  an  engine  of  high- 
est pressure  pursuing  the  iron  path  of  an  inflexible  philan- 
thropy, and  speeding  to  the  terminus  of  a  happier  clime  a 
lengthy  train,  of  the  poor,  the  halt,  the  blind  ;  and  we  pity 
those  who,  in  the  shriek,  the  hurry,  and  the  thunder  of  the 
transit — the  momentary  warmth  and  passing  indignation 
of  the  man,  forget  the  matchless  prowess  of  the  Christian, 
and  the  splendid  purpose  of  his  living  sacrifice.  And  vei 
our  wonder  is,  that  with  such  a  weight  upon  his  thoughts, 
and  such  a  work  on  his  hands,  he  found  so  much  time  for 
specific  kindness,  and  took  such  care  to  rule  his  spirit. 
Like  the  apostle  on  whom  devolved  the  care  of  all  the 


XX:,  BRIEF    MEMOIR    OF    DR.    CHALMERS. 

churches,  but  who  in  one  letter  sends  messages  to  or  from 
six-and-thirty  friends,  there  was  no  favor  so  little,  and  no 
friend  so  obscure,  that  he  ever  forgot  him.  If,  in  a  mo- 
ment of  absence,  he  omitted  some  wonted  civility,  or,  by 
an  untimely  interruption,  was  betrayed  into  a  word  of 
sharpness,  he  showed  an  excessive  anxiety  to  redress  the 
wrong,  and  heal  the  unwilling  wound.  And  glorious  as 
it  was  to  see  him  on  the  Parnassus  of  some  transcendent 
inspiration,  or  rather  on  the  Pisgah  of  some  sacred  and 
enraptured  survey,  it  was  more  delightful  to  behold  him 
in  self-unconscious  lowliness — still  great,  but  forgetful  of 
his  greatness — by  the  hearth  of  some  quiet  neighbor,  or  in 
the  bosom  of  his  own  family,  or  among  friends  who  did 
not  make  an  open  show  of  him,  out  of  the  good  treasure 
of  his  heart  bringing  forth  nothing  but  good  things.  With 
all  the  puissant  combativeness  and  intellectual  prowess 
essential  to  such  a  lofty  reason,  it  was  lovely  to  see  the 
gentle  play  of  the  lion-hearted  man.  With  all  his  opti- 
mism— his  longings  after  a  higher  scale  of  piety,  and  a 
nobler  style  of  Christianity,  it  was  beautiful  to  see  how 
contented  he  was  with  every  friend  as  he  is,  and  with 
what  magnetic  alertness  all  that  was  Christian  in  himself 
darted  forth  to  all  that  was  Christian  in  a  brother.  And 
above  all,  with  his  wholesale  beneficence,  the  abundance 
of  his  labors,  the  extent  of  his  regards,  and  the  vastness 
of  his  projects,  it  was  instructive  to  see  his  affections  so 
tender,  his  friendships  so  firm,  and  his  kind  offices  so 
thoughtful  and  untiring. 

Perhaps  there  never  was  a  theologian  who  approached 
a  given  text  with  less  appearance  of  system  or  pre-concep- 
tion.  No  passage  wore  to  him  a  suspicious  or  precarious 
look,  and  instead  of  handling  it  uneasily,  as  if  it  were 
some  deadly  thing,  he  took  it  up  securely  and  frankly, 
and  dealt  with  it  in  all  the  confidence  of  a  good  under- 
standing. Some  Scripture  interpreters  have  no  system. 
To  them  all  texts  are  isolated,  and  none  interprets  an- 


BRIEF    MEMOIR   OF    DR.    CHALMERS.  XXlll 

other.  And  the  system  of  others  is  too  scanty.  It  is  not 
co-extensive  with  the  whole  counsel  of  God.  It  interprets 
some  passages,  hut  leaves  others  unexplained.  In  the 
highest  sense,  Dr.  Chalmers  was  systematic.  He  justly 
assumed  that  a  revelation  from  God  must  be  pervaded  by 
some  continuous  truth;  and  that  a  clue  to  its  general 
meaning  must  be  sought  in  some  ultimate  fact,  some  self- 
consistent  and  all-reconciling  principle.  To  him  the  Gos-  V 
pel  was  a  Revelation  of  Righteousness  ;  and  Man's 
Need  and  God's  Gift  were  the  simple  elements  into 
which  his  theology  resolved  itself.  In  the  various  forms 
of  man's  vacuity  and  God's  fulness,  man's  blindness  and 
the  Spirit's  enlightening,  the  carnal  enmity  and  the  sup- 
planting power  of  a  new  affection,  the  hollowness  of  a 
morality  without  godliness,  and  the  purifying  influence  of 
the  Christian  faith,  these  primary  truths  were  constantly 
re-appearing ;  and  just  because  his  first  principles  were 
so  few,  they  suited  every  case,  and  because  his  system 
was  so  simple,  he  felt  it  perfectly  secure.  Instead  of 
forcing  locks,  he  had  found  the  master-key,  and  went 
freely  out  and  in.  And  in  this  we  believe  that  he  was 
right.  From  want  of  spirituality,  from  want  of  study  or 
capacity,  we  may  fail  to  catch  it ;  but  there  is  a  Scriptural 
unity.  So  far  as  the  Bible  is  a  record,  its  main  fact  is 
one;  so  far  as  it  is  a  revelation,  its  chief  doctrine  is  one; 
so  far  as  it  is  the  mind  of  God  exhibited  to  fallen  man,  its 
prevailing  tone  and  feeling  are  one.  And  having  in  com- 
prehension of  mind  ascertained,  and  in  simplicity  of  faith 
accepted  this  unity — the  revealed  truth  and  the  Scriptural 
temperament,  Dr.  Chalmers  walked  at  liberty.  It  was 
his  systematic  strength  which  gave  him  textual  freedom  ; 
and  if  for  one  forenoon  he  would  dilate  on  a  single  duty 
till  it  seemed  to  expand  into  the  whole  of  man,  or  on  one 
doctrine  till  it  bulked  into  a  Bible,  it  was  only  a  portion 
of  the  grand  scheme  passing  under  the  evangelic  micro- 
scope.    It  was  the  lamp  of  the  one  cardinal  truth  lighting 


XXIV  BRIEF    MEMOIR    OF    DR.    CHALMERS. 

up  a  particular  topic.  And  those  who,  on  the  other  hand, 
objected  to  his  preaching  as  not  sufficiently  evangelical, 
were  only  less  evangelical  than  he.  With  many  the  Gos- 
pel is  a  tenet ;  with  Dr.  Chalmers  the  Gospel  was  a  per- 
vasion. The  sermons  of  Dr.  Chalmers  were  not  stuck 
over  with  quoted  texts,  but  every  paragraph  had  its  Scrip- 
tural seasoning.  His  whole  being  held  the  Gospel  in  so- 
lution, and  beyond  most  text-reciters,  it  was  his  anxiety 
to  saturate  with  its  purest  truth  ethical  philosophy  and 
political  economy,  daily  life  and  personal  conduct,  as  well 
as  retired  meditation  and  Sabbath-day  religion. 

We  would  only,  in  conclusion,  commemorate  the  Lord's 
great  goodness  to  his  servant  in  allowing  him  such  a  com- 
pleted work  and  finished  course.  Many  a  great  man  has 
had  a  good  thing  in  his  heart ;  a  temple,  or  some  august 
undertaking ;  but  it  was  still  in  his  heart  when  he  died. 
And  many  more  have  just  put  to  their  hand,  when  death 
struck  them  down,  and  a  stately  fragment  is  all  their  mon- 
ument. But  there  is  a  sublime  and  affecting  conclusive- 
ness in  the  work  of  Dr.  Chalmers.  What  more  could  the 
Church  or  the  world  have  asked  from  him  1  It  will  take 
the  Church  a  generation  to  learn  all  that  he  has  taught 
it,  and  the  world  a  century  to  reach  that  point  from  which 
he  was  translated.  And  yet  he  has  left  all  his  meaning 
clear,  and  all  his  plans  complete.  And  all  that  completed 
work  is  of  the  best  kind ;  all  gold  and  silver  and  precious 
stones.  To  activity  and  enterprise  he  has  read  a  new  les- 
son. To  disinterested  but  foreseen  goodness  he  has  sup- 
plied a  new  motive.  To  philanthropy  he  has  given  new 
impulse,  and  to  the  pulpit  new  inspiration.  And  whilst 
he  has  added  another  to  the  short  catalogue  of  this  world's 
great  men,  he  has  gone  up  another  and  a  majestic  on- 
looker to  the  Cloud  of  Witnesses. 


A    SERMON 


BY 

REV.  JOHN  BRUCE,  A.M., 

free  st.  Andrew's  church,  Edinburgh. 

[Preached  in  Moringside  Free  Church,  June  6,  1847,  being  the  Sabbath  im- 
mediately after  the  funeral  of  Thomas  Chalmers,  D.  D.,  LL.  D.,  &c, 
dec,  cfrc] 

On  the  morning  of  Monday  the  31st  of  May,  there  died,  and 
on  the  afternoon  of  Friday  the  4th  of  June,  there  was  buried,  the 
greatest  and  most  noted  man  in  Scotland.  It  is  nearly  three  cen- 
turies since  she  knew  one  equally  great  and  honored, — one  more 
revered  when  living,  more  mourned  when  gone.  In  love  to 
Scotland  God  gave  her  Knox ;  and  when  his  work  was  done,  He 
gave  him  a  peaceful  death-bed,  an  honored  tomb,  and  a  place  in 
the  memory  of  every  true  Scottish  heart  for  many  generations. 
In  love  to  Scotland,  in  these  later  days,  God  raised  up  Chalmers 
to  do  a  mighty  work  and  wage  a  glorious  warfare  ;  and  when  his 
work  was  ended,  he  gave  him  as  calm  a  dismissal,  as  hallowed  a 
grave,  and  as  deep  a  place  in  the  heart  of  his  country, — in  the 
memory  of  his  race. 

Over  neither  do  we  sorrow  as  those  who  have  no  hope.  They 
are  not  dead,  they  have  but  entered  on  their  better  life ;  they 
have  not  withered  up  and  passed  away,  they  are  putting  on  new 
blossoms  in  a  more  genial  clime,  preparing  for  the  day  of  the 
great  fruit-bearing,  when  the  resurrection-sun  shall  rise.  They 
rest  from  their  labors,  and  their  works  do  follow  them.  What  a 
meeting  must  that  have  been  which  has  now  taken  place  between 
these  two  mighty  souls  ! — what  a  fellowship  must  that  be  which 


26  FUNERAL    SERMON. 

is  now  enjoyed  as  they  sit  together  under  the  shade  of  the  tree  of 
life,  or  climb  the  bright  slopes  of  the  everlasting  hills !  Forever 
with  each  other,  and  forever  with  the  Lord. 

Summoned  away  at  midnight  in  a  moment,  Dr.  Chalmers  has 
left  us  no  death-bed  testimony,  has  bequeathed  us  no  parting 
counsels.  But  his  counsels  had  been  fully  spoken  and  written 
long  before  ;  and  his  whole  life  was  one  grand  testimony.  What 
a  testimony  !  From  the  day  that  he  knew  the  grace  of  God  in 
truth,  his  life  became  a  consecrated  thing, — himself  a  "  living  sac- 
rifice." It  was  "  Corban," — a  gift, — the  life  of  one  who  knew 
that  he  was  not  his  own,  that  he  had  been  purchased  by  another 
for  his  service.  The  whole  energy  of  his  mighty  spirit,  the  whole 
capacities  of  his  gifted  mind,  the  whole  warmth  of  his  loving 
heart,  were  gladly  dedicated  to  his  new  and  better  Master — 
thrown  unreservedly  into  his  cause.  His  days  were  days  of 
labor,  unintermitted  and  untiring.  His  was  a  lifetime  of,  care 
and  toil  and  conflict ;  yet  it  was  well-laid-out  care,  fruit-bearing 
toil,  and  successful  conflict.  There  was  a  strength  and  untiring- 
ness  of  energy  about  him  that  seemed  almost  superhuman.  His 
enthusiasm  was  of  the  fearless  kind ;  his  zeal  never  flagged  ;  it 
remained  as  fresh  in  age  as  in  the  days  of  his  fervent  manhood. 
The  chill  of  years  was  not  on  him  ;  the  innate  fire  of  his  spirit 
seemed  to  charm  it  away.  The  activity  of  the  ever-moving 
power  in  him  was  only  equalled  by  its  steadiness  and  depth.  It 
was  constant,  not  fitful.  It  was  vast,  yet  it  was  strangely  equa- 
ble. It  had  in  it  the  strength  of  the  torrent,  but  the  depth  of  the 
wave. 

He  was  a  man  of  many  thoughts,  of  many  schemes,  of  many 
deeds, — all  of  them  large  and  lofty.  Their  circle  was  of  no 
common  stretch.  They  ranged  wide  and  far.  Beyond  the  blue 
hills  of  Scotland  ;  beyond  the  ocean-girdle  that  hems  Britain  in. 
his  soul  went  abroad  and  his  sympathies  spread  themselves  out 
over  the  wide  compass  of  earth.  In  his  views  there  was  no  nar- 
rowness:. In  his  nature  there  was  no  littleness.  All  was  massive 
and  kinglv.     He  was  not  like  one  looking  upward  from  the  bot- 


FUNERAL    SERMON.  27 

torn  of  some  deep  glen  upon  the  sunny  slopes  around  him,  think- 
ing nought  of  anything  beyond  their  limit ;  but  like  one  looking 
downward  from  some  Alpine  eminence  upon  a  whole  world  be- 
neath him  ;  and  this  not  simply  as  one  admiring  what  he  saw,  but 
as  one  who  was  a  part  of  it,  who  was  knit  to  every  atom  of  it, 
who  felt  himself  "  a  debtor"  to  all  who  dwelt  upon  its  surface, — 
Jew  or  Greek,  Barbarian,  Scythian,  bond  or  free. 

There  was  a  wonderful  fruitfulness  and  elasticity  about  him,  so 
that  nothing  could  shut  him  up  or  lead  him  to  despair.  He  was 
rich  in  resources.  His  spirit  knew  no  dearth.  Nor  was  this 
mere  ingenuity.  It  was  more,  it  was  something  higher  and  more 
commanding.  It  was  fruitfulness,  it  was  depth,  it  was  power. 
Nay  more,  it  was  bravery.  For  a  fearless  spirit  was  in  him,  and 
an  indomitable  tenacity,  that  no  unlikelihood  could  discourage  nor 
difficulty  baffle.  There  was  a  quiet  but  resolute  purpose  about 
him,  from  which  he  turned  not  aside,  and  in  the  execution  of 
which  he  never  wearied.  True  representative  of  our  ancient 
Scottish  chiefs,  true  descendant  of  Reformers  and  Covenanters, 
he  refused  to  swerve  from  his  mark  or  give  up  the  object  of  his 
pursuit.  Like  Knox,  his  eye  went  over  Scotland, — all  Scotland, 
— its  cities  and  its  villages,  its  plains  and  its  moors.  His  heart 
took  in  all  its  families, — its  rich  and  its  poor,  its  old,  its  young. 
Towards  every  dweller  in  it,  his  desires  flowed  forth  as  to  a 
brother  or  a  child,  with  a  true  longing  to  bless  them,  and  with 
profound  commiseration  for  whatever  he  was  unable  to  rectify  or 
relieve.  During  last  winter's  famine,  his  sympathy  for  the  suf- 
fering was  most  tender ;  he  eagerly  caught  at  each  day's  intelli- 
gence to  learn  whether  there  were  any  signs  of  amelioration  ap- 
pearing or  sufficiency  of  relief  administered. 

Over  all  his  fellow-men  his  heart  most  truly  yearned.  But  it 
was  towards  the  poor  especially  that  his  thoughts  seemed  ever  to 
go  forth.  For  them  he  toiled  and  wrote,  and  pleaded,  and  planned, 
and  prayed.  And  the  last  great  work  of  his  life  was  to  provide 
a  church  and  a  minister,  a  school  and  a  teacher,  for  the  poor. 


28'  FUNERAL    SERMON. 

He  was  permitted  to  see  this  completed,  and  to  dispense  the  first 
communion  in  that  new  home  of  the  gathered  outcasts. 

He  had  often  expressed  a  longing  to  withdraw  from  public 
life,  and  spend  the  rest  of  his  years  in  quiet  and  fellowship  with 
God.  This  he  was  not  allowed  to  carry  into  effect.  He  was 
taken  up  at  once,  and  in  the  very  midst  of  his  labors.  He  was 
called  to  enter  into  rest,  but  it  was  a  higher  and  more  glorious 
rest  than  he  had  counted  on.  Yet  his  work  was  fully  done.  Of 
no  one  could  this  be  more  truly  affirmed.  It  was  a  vast  work  to 
which  he  had  been  called,  yet  in  the  strength  of  his  God  he  had 
done  it ;  no  part  was  left  undone.  What  work  is  there  which  we 
could  wish  him  to  have  undertaken  that  he  has  not  accomplished  ? 
He  might  be  said  to  have  died  working.  He  was  to  have  ad- 
dressed the  General  Assembly  next  day,  and  had  made  prepara- 
tions for  rising  early  to  complete  his  work  for  that  occasion.  He 
was  busy  to  the  last.  He  had  lost  no  time.  He  had  laid  out  his 
life  well, — therein  leaving  us  an  example  that  we  should  follow 
his  steps, — an  example  of  unconquerable  energy,  undecaying 
zeal,  and  faithful  endurance  to  the  end. 

He  was  a  marvellous  compound  of  simplicity  and  greatness,  of 
meekness  and  majesty,  of  modesty  and  manliness.  He  was  the 
most  unpretending,  unassuming,  unobtrusive,  child-like  of  men. 
He  had  so  much  and  yet  so  little  of  the  child.  There  was  nothing 
in  him  of  frivolity  or  levity,  yet  was  he  one  of  the  most  brightly 
cheerful  companions  that  could  be  met  with.  On  his  countenance 
there  was  thoughtfulness  at  all  times,  sometimes  absence  and  ab- 
straction, yet  ever  at  the  same  time  "  an  under-current  of  deep- 
running  joy."  No  man  delighted  more  in  looking  out  upon  the 
material  world  in  its  beauty  or  its  grandeur.  He  was  one  of 
those  who  could  say — 

"  Tis  joy  to  move  under  the  bended  sky, 
To  smell  the  pleasant  earth  and  feel  the  winds  go  by." 

He  was  so  loving,  so  frank,  so  homely,  so  full  of  hope,  so  buoy- 
ant in  his  whole  character,  that  no  one  who  knew  him  could  fail 


FUNERAL    SERMON.  29 

to  be  knit  to  him  at  once,  soul  to  soul.  All  with  him  was  thor- 
oughly real  and  genuine,  vital  and  full  of  vigorous  strength, 
alike  in  the  faculties  of  his  mind  and  the  feelings  of  his  heart 
As  one  said  of  him,  "  he  was  the  most  lovable  of  all  living  men." 
How  strong  was  the  influence  he  exercised  over  other  men  and 
other  minds  !  Yet  it  was  a  gentle  and  unconscious  sway.  It 
was  not  the  control  of  the  whirlwind  over  the  billows  of  the 
deep — rude  and  wild  in  its  exercise.  It  was  the  influence  of  the 
moon  over  the  tides,  wider  and  stronger  than  the  other,  yet  im- 
perceptible, the  influence  of  overshadowing  genius,  yet  still  more 
the  influence  of  his  own  placid  and  most  paternal  smile.  The 
tenacity  of  his  friendships  and  the  warmth  of  his  love  were  won- 
derful, considering  the  immense  number  and  variety  of  his  ac- 
quaintances. He  seemed  to  forget  no  one,  and  delighted  above 
all  things  to  revisit  the  friends  and  scenes  of  other  days.  It  was 
Beza,  we  think,  who  said  when  he  heard  of  Calvin's  death,  "  Now 
that  Calvin  is  dead,  life  will  be  less  sweet  and  death  less  bitter." 
How  many  are  there  in  our  Church  and  land  who  can  at  this 
time  make  these  words  most  truly  their  own. 

His  love  for  divine  truth  was  intense.  His  relish  for  the  simple 
Gospel  of  the  grace  of  God  was  one  of  the  most  striking  features 
in  his  character.  It  was  not  only  the  theme  of  his  sermons,  but 
the  subject  of  his  letters  and  his  conversation.  No  man  ever 
preached  it  more  freely  or  stated  it  more  simply  and  beautifully 
than  he.  How  touchingly  is  this  brought  out  in  one  of  the  ex- 
tracts given  in  Mr.  Bruce's  admirable  sermon,  from  some  of  Dr. 
Chalmers'  meditations.  He  thus  writes,  "  What  straining  1  have 
had  after  a  right  understanding  of  God  and  his  ways  !  more  es- 
pecially the  way  of  salvation !  Give  me  greatness,  clearness, 
fulness  of  understanding,  O  God." 

He  died,  we  may  say,  without  a  death-bed.  His  was  not  in- 
deed the  glorious  ascension  of  Elijah  in  his  blazing  chariot,  but  it 
was  even  more  sudden,  more  unforeseen.  Yet  not  unprepared 
for.  He  knew  in  whom  he  had  believed.  To  die  was  gain.  As 
a  shock  of  corn  fully  ripe  he  came  to  his  end.     Who  would  not 


30  FUNERAL    SERMON. 

die  his  death  ?  A  death  without  pain  or  weariness,  without  lan- 
guishing or  decay,  an  instantaneous  passage  from  a  happy  family 
circle  below  to  a  far  happier  family  circle  above,  where  his  large 
and  loving  heart,  can  now  get  fullest  vent  to  itself,  and  where  his 
joy  shall  be  forever  full.  Decay  was  not  upon  him,  nor  infirmity. 
Sickness  did  not  waste  him.  His  strength  did  not  slowly  ebb. 
His  faculties  did  not  wither  up  and  fall  into  the  imbecility  of  a 
second  childhood.  But  in  the  fulness  of  his  nature  and  unabated 
strength,  in  the  undiminished  vigor  of  his  majestic  mind,  he  passed 
up  from  among  us,  and  took  his  seat  in  the  general  assembly  and 
church  of  the  first-born  in  Heaven. 

He  died  alone.  No  eye  but  his  Saviour's  saw  him  die.  No 
hand  but  his  Saviour's  took  hold  of  his  in  the  moment  of  depart- 
ing. Like  Moses,  God  led  him  aside  that  he  might  die  alone ;  as 
if  that  were  the  most  fitting  as  well  as  the  most  kind  and  gracious 
way  of  receiving  him  to  himself.  The  bitterness  of  death  he  was 
not  to  taste ;  the  "  long  day's  dying"  was  not  to  "  augment  his 
pain."  No  tears  were  to  be  shed  around  him  to  discompose  his 
parting  hour.  No  farewells  were  to  be  heard  around  that  solitary 
couch.  No  voice  of  sorrow,  no  sigh  of  the  mourner  was  to  fall 
upon  his  dying  ear.  All  this  his  loving  heart  was  spared.  The 
advancing  footsteps  of  death  he  was  not  to  hear ;  only  the  quick 
summons  to  arise,  so  that  he  should  not  know  that  it  was  death 
till  he  had  landed  on  the  shore  of  life.  In  the  silence  of  midnight, 
when  all  the  loved  ones  of  his  circle  were  calmly  sleeping,  the 
great  spirit  shook  off  its  mortal  wrappings  and  went  up  to  the 
spirits  of  the  just  made  perfect.  He  had  scarcely  finished  his 
earthly  Sabbath,  and  come  home  from  worshipping  in  the  temple 
below,  when  he  was  summoned  to  begin  the  endless  Sabbath  in 
the  bright  courts  above. 

One  of  earth's  mighty  ones  has  gone.  The  loss  is  vast.  It 
has  made  the  world  incalculably  poorer.  A  standard-bearer  has 
fallen.  There  is  one  star  less  in  our  darkening  firmament.  One 
by  one  the  noble-minded  are  departing.  The  great  souls  of  the 
earth  are  quitting  it,  taken  away  from  the  evil  to  come.     For  in 


FUNERAL    SERMON.  31 

Dr.  Chalmers,  there  was  one  out  of  the  few  exceptions  to  Dr. 
M'Crie's  startling,  but  pregnant  utterance,  "  in  our  day  we  have 
men  of  great  minds,  but  no  men  of  great  souls." 

God  is  striking  away  our  human  props.  But  he  is  offering  us 
his  own  arm  to  lean  upon.  Woe  be  to  us  if  we  reject  it.  Thrice 
blessed  if  we  read  his  meaning  and  betake  ourselves  to  Him. 
Better  than  all  earthly  shields  or  weapons  of  war  is  he  to  the 
church  that  seeks  refuge  in  Him. 

Our  loved  father  is  only  parted  for  a  little.  We  shall  see  him 
again.  We  shall  hear  his  voice  again.  We  shall  grasp  his  hand 
again.  We  shall  be  knit  to  his  whole  living  man  again,  in  the 
realms  where  there  is  no  severance  of  bonds,  where  there  comes 
no  midnight  messenger  of  death,  where  there  is  seen  no  shroud, 
no  coffin,  no  funeral  procession,  no  heaving  turf,  no  mouldering 
grave  ;  but  one  perpetual  living,  an  endless  rejoicing,  an  eternal 
union,  an  unfading  brightness,  a  day  without  a  night,  a  sky  with- 
out a  cloud,  a  song  without  one  note  of  sorrow  to  mar  its  perfect 
harmony. 


* 


THE  EXAMPLE  OF  OUR  SAVIOUB 

A  GUIDE  AND  AN  AUTHORITY 

IN    THE 

ESTABLISHMENT  OF  CHARITABLE  INSTITUTIONS. 


"Then  Jesus  called  his  disciples  unto  him,  and  said,  I  have  compassion  on  the  multi- 
tude, because  they  continue  with  us  now  three  days,  and  have  nothing  to  eat :  and  I 
will  not  send  them  away  fasting  lest  they  faint  in  the  way." — Matthew  xv.  32. 

••  When  the  people  therefore  saw  that  Jesus  was  not  there,  neither  his  disciples,  thev 
also  took  shipping,  and  came  to  Capernaum,  seeking  for  Jesus.  And  when  they  hail 
found  him  on  the  other  side  of  the  sea,  they  said  unto  him,  Rabbi,  when  earnest  thou 
hither!  Jesus  answered  them,  and  said.  Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto  you,  ve  seek  me,  not 
because  ye  saw  the  miracles,  but  because  ye  did  eat  of  the  loaves,  and"  were  filled/  — 
John-  vi.  -24 — 26. 

"  But  when  Jesus  knew  it,  he  withdrew  himself  from  thence ;  and  great  multitudes 
followed  him,  and  he  healed  them  all." — Matthew  xii.  15. 


Compassion  is  that  feeling  which  arises  in  the  heart  of  a  human 
being,  when  he  looks  to  the  misery  of  another — which,  if  unmixed 
with  other  feelings,  keeps  him  restless  and  dissatisfied  till  the  mis- 
ery be  done  away — wrhich  prompts  him  to  measures  of  relief; — 
and  at  length  finds  its  ultimate  gratification  in  the  deliverance 
of  its  object,  from  that  suffering  which  called  forth  the  sensibilitv 
that  we  are  now  adverting  to. 

But  there  may  be  other  feelings  excited  by  the  very  same  object, 
and  which  tend  to  modify  or  to  suspend  the  exercise  of  compassion 
altogether.  The  misery  in  question  may  be  the  infliction  of  a  pun- 
ishment ;  and  our  sense  of  justice,  if  it  do  not  prevent  the  existence 
of  a  sense  of  compassion,  will  at  least  so  far  keep  it  in  check,  as 
to  restrain  us  from  obeying  the  impulse  of  it.  Or  it  may  be  the 
pain  of  a  severe  but  salutary  operation ;  and  then  the  sensitive 
compassion  which  we  would  feel  in  common  with  children,  we 
do  not  like  children  follow — and  just  because  we  put  it  under  the 
control  of  a  higher  and  more  intelligent  compassion.  Or  it  mav 
be  the  immediate  suffering  of  a  correction,  administered  for  the 
moral  good  of  him  who  is  its  object  ;  and  still  there  mav  be  a 
moral  rectitude  in   withstanding  the   dictate  of  compassion",  while 

5 


34  Christ's  example  a  ground 

we  feel  the  emotion  of  it.  And  thus  while  it  goes  to  form  a  re- 
volting unloveliness  of  character,  to  have  a  heart*  unmoved  by 
even  the  slighter  or  more  transient  distresses  of  our  common  na- 
ture — yet  it  also  goes  not  to  impair  but  to  perfect  the  character, 
when  all  these  constitutional  movements  are  brought  under  the 
guidance  of  principle,  and  of  a  virtuous  and  intelligent  regard  to 
the  higher  interests  of  our  species. 

In  a  matter  of  charity,  a  man  may  have  the  intelligence  with- 
out the  instinct ;  and  we  then  look  to  him  with  something  of  the 
same  dread  and  aversion  that  wre  do  to  one  of  those  mutilated 
spirits  among  the  infernal,  who  are  permitted  to  retain  the  ener- 
gies of  their  nature,  after  all  its  moralities  have  been  extinguished. 
Yet  that  is  no  good  reason  why  all  our  preferences  should  be  di- 
rected to  him.  who  has  only  the  instinct  without  the  intelligence — 
why  the  question  should  not  be  looked  to  with  the  eye  of  dis- 
cernment, as  well  as  with  an  eye  of  tearful  sensibility — why 
thought  and  experience  and  wisdom  should  be  banished  from  this 
department  of  human  affairs — why  the  higher  powers  of  the  mind 
should  not  be  admitted  into  the  deliberations  of  charity — or,  when 
sense  is  offered  as  well  as  sympathy  upon  the  subject,  why  all  the 
voices  both  of  male  and  female  sentimentalism  should  therefore 
be  formed  into  one  mighty  effort  to  cry  it  down. 

There  is  perhaps  no  one  agony  to  which  by  our  corporeal 
frame  we  are  liable,  that  draws  forth  a  readier  compassion,  or 
leads  more  surely  to  a  consequent  aci  of  relief,  than  the  agony  of 
hunger.  It  is.  positively  not  in  nature,  to  remain  steeled  against 
the  look  of  despair,  or  the  look  of  pining  consumptiveness,  with 
which  it  implores  a  relief  to  its  cravings.  There  may  be  the 
suspicion  of  imposture,  to  shut  and  to  harden  the  heart ;  and  little 
do  the  poor  among  the  people  know,  how  their  deadliest  enemies 
by  far,  and  they  who  have,  done  most  to  shift  the  flood  of  liberality 
away  from  them,  are  to  be  found  among  those,  who  have  coun- 
terfeited their  sufferings,  and  handled  their  words  and  their  sighs 
deceitfully.  But  let  there  be  no  deceit  on  the  one  side,  and  no 
imagination  of  it  on  the  other;  and  it  would  argue  a  man  to  be  a 
monster,  could  he  withstand  the  piercing  or  the  plaintive  cry  of  a 
brother  in  the  agonies  of  hunger.  The  law  which  would  inflict 
such  a  suffering  as  this,  even  for  the  worst  of  crimes,  would,  in 
any  humanized  country,  be  reduced  to  a  dead-letter  for  the  wTant  of 
agents  to  carry  it  into  execution.  There  would  not  be  found,  even 
among  the  hardiest  officers  of  a  jail,  men  of  nerve  enough  and 
sternness  enough  to  be  faithful  to  the  barbarity  that  was  assigned  to 
them.  The  whole  vicinity  of  such  a  place  of  torture,  would  itself 
be  in  torture,  under  the  consciousness  of  any  one  portion  of  our  na- 
ture being  within  its  reach,  and  lingering  under  the  inflictions  of  a 
calamity  so  exquisite.  The  very  poorest  of  the  people  could  not 
bear  the  thought  of  it ;  and  they  would  be  seen  to  elude  the  eye 
of  half-conniving  sentinels,  and  to  cast  a  pittance  of  their  own 


FOR    CHARITABLE    INSTITUTIONS.  35 

scanty  fare  through  the  gratings  of  this  cell  of  anguish.  Humanity- 
would  rise  in  rebellion  against  such  a  proceeding ;  and  the  law 
be  trampled,  as  it  ought,  into  utter  inefficiency.  So  that,  how- 
ever man  may  blunder  his  arrangements  for  the  anticipation  of 
eventual  hunger,  man,  if  not  an  outcast  from  the  general  char- 
acter of  his  fellows,  never  can  listen  unmoved  to  the  claims  of 
actual  hunger.  The  speculation  which  would  harden  him  into 
such  indifference  as  this,  deserves  to  have  the  seal  of  infamy  set 
upon  it — and  no  talent  by  which  it  is  defended,  no  eloquence  by 
which  it  is  set  forth  to  public  acceptance,  should  go  to  shield  it 
from  the  vengeance  of  public  reprobation. 

Nothing  then  can  be  more  clearly  imperative  on  the  disciples  of 
Christ,  than  to  follow  out  those  impulses  of  compassion,  by  which 
they  are  prompted  to  the  redress  of  such  sufferings  as  are  presently 
before  them.  "  If  a  brother  or  sister  be  actually  naked,  or  ac- 
tually destitute  of  daily  food ;  and  one  of  you  say  unto  them, 
Depart  in  peace,  be  ye  warmed  and  clothed,  notwithstanding  ye 
give  them  not  those  things  which  are  needful  for  the  body — what 
doth  it  profit  1  And  whoso  hath  this  world's  goods,  and  seeth  his 
brother  have  need,  and  shutteth  up  his  bowels  of  compassion  from 
him — how  dwelleth  the  love  of  God  in  him  ?"  And  further,  nothing 
is  more  thoroughly  accordant  with  the  whole  spirit  and  character 
of  our  faith,  than  when,  under  the  instigation  of  a  more  active 
and  aspiring  good-will,  man,  instead  of  waiting  until  distress  pre- 
sents itself  before  him,  goeth  forth  on  the  errand  of  search  and 
of  discovery  among  its  likely  habitations — than  when,  with  some- 
thing more  than  a  house  and  a  heart  open  to  the  applications  of 
the  wretched,  he  maketh  his  own  positive  and  personal  aggressions 
on  the  territory  of  wretchedness — than  when  he  not  only  con- 
sents to  relieve,  but  offers  to  relieve  ;  and  not  only  welcomes  the 
proposals  of  charity,  but  originates  the  proposals  of  charity — 
visiting  the  fatherless  and  the  widow  in  their  affliction  ;  alive  to 
all  the  actual  distress  that  is  within  his  reach ;  and  holding  the 
very  existence  of  misery,  whether  seen  or  unseen,  to  be  a  claim 
upon  his  attentions  and  his  services. 

But  what  I  think  is  egregiously  wanted  on  the  part  of  the  benev- 
olent public,  is  a  clear  and  steady  discernment  of  the  difference  that 
there  is — between  a  proposal  for  the  redress  of  present  suffering, 
and  a  plan,  which,  additionally  to  this  object,  does,  by  the  stability 
of  its  mechanism  and  the  perpetuity  of  its  operation,  involve  in  it 
a  proposal  for  the  redress  of  future  suffering.  The  object  is  alto- 
gether excellent.  The  desire  that  such  distresses  as  are  not  yet 
in  existence  should  be  relieved  when  they  arise,  is  just  as  much 
the  natural  and  legitimate  working  of  a  principle  of  compassion, 
as  the  desire  that  the  distresses  now  around  us  should  be  so  re- 
lieved. Propose  to  compassion,  either  a  suffering  that  now  is,  or 
a  suffering  that  is  certainly  to  be ;  and  you  in  each  case  place  be- 
fore it  the  very  object  on  which  it  fastens,  and  in  which  it  finds  mat- 


36  CHRIST  S  EXAMPLE  A  GROUND 

ter  for  its  proper  and  congenial  exercise.  In  thus  doing  you  make 
an  appeal  to  the  heart.  But  when  you  come  forth  with  a  plan, 
you  come  forth  with  an  appeal  to  the  understanding.  A  plan 
may,  it  is  very  possible,  aggravate  the  distress  which  it  proposes 
to  do  away.  It  may  beget  a  delusive  hope  of  its  efficiency  as  a 
corrective  to  human  suffering,  and  thus  slacken  the  operation  of 
all  the  preventatives  of  human  suffering.  Instead  of  drawing  the 
rich  into  a  closer  and  kindlier  habit  of  intercourse  with  the  poor, 
it  may,  through  the  intermedium  of  that  body  of  management  on 
which  its  execution  is  devolved,  rise  as  a  barrier  of  separation  be- 
tween them.  It  may  be  such  a  system  of  public  and  regulated 
charity,  as  goes  to  stifle  and  supersede  the  compassion  of  the  heart 
instead  of  softening  it ;  and,  with  the  seemly  apparatus  of  direct 
security  which  it  has  raised  for  the  accommodation  of  the  destitute 
— all  it  may  ever  do,  is  to  force  one  great  stream  into  an  abyss 
that  is  bottomless ;  and  to  dry  up  or  divert  those  innumerable 
lesser  streams,  which  else  would  flow,  in  fruitful  and  refreshing 
circulation,  among  the  many  reservoirs  of  private  society.  All 
this  may  be  a  man's  understanding ;  and,  whether  in  error  or  not, 
it  may  be  the  understanding  of  one,  who,  along  with  the  principle 
of  intelligence  in  his  bosom  such  as  it  is,  may  have  room  in  its 
receptacles  for  lodging  a  compassionate  heart.  It  may  be  the 
understanding  of  one,  who  feels  compassion  for  all  the  misery  that 
now  is ;  and  with  whom  it  is  the  whole  aim  of  his  most  strenuous 
philanthropy,  to  maintain  among  mankind  the  entireness  and  the 
efficacy  of  compassion,  in  unimpaired  reserve  for  all  the  misery 
that  is  to  come.  It  may  be  the  understanding  of  one  who  par- 
takes in  all  the  sympathies  of  nature,  and  at  the  same  time  has 
such  confidence  in  their  wise  and  ready  adaptation  to  the  sufferings 
of  nature,  that  he  looks  on  the  intermeddling,  either  of  legislative 
or  municipal  wisdom,  as  pregnant  with  danger  and  disturbance  to 
the  best  interests  of  humanity.  It  is  not  because  he  is  hostile  to 
commerce  that  he  deprecates  the  interference  of  public  regulation ; 
but  because  he  thinks  that  commerce  thrives  most  prosperously, 
when  left  to  the  operation  of  her  own  unfettered  principles  on  the 
wants  and  activities  of  the  species.  It  is  not  because  he  is  hostile 
to  benevolence,  that  he  protests  against  every  attempt  to  turn  a 
matter  of  kindness  into  a  matter  of  compulsion  ;  but  because  he 
thinks  that  benevolence,  left  to  her  own  free  and  spontaneous 
energies,  will  shed  a  more  abundant  blessing  upon  the  land,  than 
benevolence  moulded  into  the  shape  and  lifeiessness  of  a  statue, 
by  the  hand  of  legislation.  If  he  be  wrong,  he  is  only  wrong  in 
understanding ;  and  for  this  error,  let  him  be  taken  to  the  field  of 
argument,  and  there  let  him  endure  all  the  severities  of  the  con- 
test, and,  if  so  be,  all  the  disgrace  of  an  overthrow.  But  it  ceases 
to  be  argument,  and  sours  and  blackens  into  calumny,  when  the 
impeachment  is  raised,  not  against  his  notions,  but  against  his 
sensibilities — when  denounced  as  the  enemy  of  all  benevolence, 


FOR    CHARITABLE    INSTITUTIONS.  37 

because,  in  resistance  to  modern  inventions,  he  proclaims  her 
authority  in  the  way  which  he  thinks  to  be  coeval  with  the  law  of 
revelation  and  the  law  of  the  heart — when  charged  with  the  guilt 
of  a  rebel  against  the  established  maxims  of  charity,  because  he 
cannot  bow  the  knee  to  the  mandates  of  those  courts  and  corpora- 
tions of  charity,  which  owe  their  title  of  established  only  to  the 
perpetuity  of  error — when  represented  as  a  transgressor  against 
nature,  because  he  resists  the  deviations  which  have  been  made 
from  her ;  and  as  trying  by  wisdom  to  school  away  all  the  sym- 
pathies of  the  human  frame,  only  because  he  resists  the  encroach- 
ments, which  the  wisdom  of  man  has  made  on  the  wisdom  of  Him, 
who,  as  the  architect  of  the  human  frame,  is  also  the  alone  right- 
ful architect  of  all  human  morality.  It  is  then  that  the  poison  of 
injustice  enters  into  the  controversy.  It  is  then  that  the  torch  of 
truth  is  exchanged  for  the  firebrand  of  discord ;  and  her  angry 
flash  is  all  that  remains  to  lighten  up  that  field,  where  the  war  of 
argument  has  now  become  a  war  of  recriminations.  Let  us  cease 
to  wonder,  that,  amid  the  thickenings  of  such  a  warfare,  evil 
should  be  called  good,  or  good  should  be  called  evil ;  that  they 
should  be  traduced  as  having  no  heart,  who  have  stood  forth  the 
most  zealous  champions  of  all  its  prerogatives — as  having  tried  to 
extirpate  humanity,  who  have  done  most  to  rescue  her  from  thral- 
dom— as  having  aimed  by  the  weapon  of  an  intellectual  demon- 
stration at  the  overthrow  of  benevolence — when  their  whole  aim 
was  the  overthrow  of  those  intellectual  perversities,  which  have 
been  gradually  imbodied  into  the  practice  of  the  existing  genera- 
tion ;  and  which  have  done  so  much  to  congeal  benevolence,  and 
to  cramp  all  its  feelings  and  all  its  generous  aspirations  among  the 
entanglements  of  an  artificial  mechanism. 

We  now  proceed  to  the  direct  consideration  of  the  passages 
which  have  already  been  submitted  to  you. 

I.  From  the  first  of  them,  do  we  learn  the  effect,  which  the  ex- 
hibition of  actual  suffering  had  on  the  heart  of  Him,  who,  both  in 
feeling  and  in  morality,  is  held  forth  in  Scripture  as  a  pattern  to 
us.  Without  any  reference  then  to  the  origin  of  the  suffering, 
was  he  immediately  moved  to  compassion  on  his  view  of  the  ex- 
istence of  it.  There  may  have  been  a  culpability  in  the  origin. 
There  may  have  been  a  want  of  foresight,  on  the  part  of  the  peo- 
ple. There  may,  with  some  of  them,  have  been  the  abandonment 
of  their  regular  occupation  for  a  few  days  on  the  impulse  of  an 
idle  curiosity.  There  may,  even  at  this  earlier  stage  of  their  ex- 
perience of  Jesus  Christ  and  of  the  rule  of  His  proceedings,  have 
been  the  sordid  expectation  of  a  miraculous  supply  from  heaven, 
to  relieve  that  hunger,  against  which  they  had  failed  to  provide  by 
their  own  industry.  But  no  matter.  Here  is  wretchedness  in 
actual  being,  however  it  may  have  originated.     Here  is  a  mul- 


3?  CHRIST  S  EXAMPLE  A  GROUND 

titude  overtaken,  and  now  in  agony.  Here  a  sense  of  their  help- 
lessness and  of  their  danger  and  of  their  distance  from  food,  is  now 
spreading  a  visible  alarm  through  this  crowd  of  population.  Here 
symptoms  of  increasing  restlessness,  and  groups  of  busy  consulta- 
tion, and  the  evident  awakenings  of  one  topic  and  of  one  terror 
among  them  all,  and  a  gathering  hue  of  despair  on  the  counte- 
nance of  mothers,  and  the  cries  of  famishing  children — are  now 
beginning  to  give  authentic  proclamation  of  nature  in  distress. 
And  what  was  the  effect  we  ask  on  Him,  who  took  upon  Him  this 
nature ;  and  that  too,  with  the  design  of  authorizing  and  exem- 
plifying all  the  virtues  of  which  it  is  capable  ?  Did  they  suggest 
to  him  at  the  moment  any  calculation  either  of  causes  or  of  con- 
sequences ?  None,  or  none  at  least  that  we  read  of.  Did  they 
lead  him  to  brood,  in  chilling  thougtfulness,  over  either  the  habits 
of  past  improvidence,  or  the  possibilities  of  future  unbelief?  No. 
Did  he,  in  the  conduct  of  relieving  them,  devise  any  line  of  sep- 
aration betwixt  the  deserving  and  the  undeserving  ?  No.  Did 
any  one  maxim  of  economy  or  of  science,  offer  to  lay  an  arrest 
upon  his  sensibilities,  or  to  deafen  the  energy  of  that  pleading 
voice,  which  now  arose  from  the  multitude  before  him?  No.  He 
looked  to  them,  we  are  told  ;  and  He  had  compassion  on  them  that 
they  had  nothing  to  eat ;  and  He  could  not  send  them  away  fast- 
ing— lest  they  should  faint  on  the  way.  He  felt  the  urgency  of 
the  call,  and  He  forthwith  acted  upon  it.  He  provided  for  the 
whole  extent  of  the  present  emergency ;  and,  without  delay  or 
without  discrimination,  did  He  bring  forward  food  for  all,  so  that 
they  did  all  eat  and  were  filled. 

And  so  may  it  happen  in  the  present  day.  Distress  may  come 
at  unawares :  and  this  distress  may  extend  to  a  multitude.  By 
one  unlooked  for  evolution  in  the  mechanism  of  trade,  a  whole 
class  of  society  may  suddenly  be  overtaken  ;  and,  what  with  the 
actual  misery  of  the  present  and  the  gloomy  forebodings  of  the 
future,  may  realize  the  very  sensations  which  drew  out  a  miracle 
of  loaves  from  the  pitying  Saviour.  It  is  clearly  our  part  to  feel 
as  he  felt,  and,  as  far  as  we  are  able,  to  do  as  He  did.  And  were 
it  possible  to  single  out  from  the  mass  with  which  they  are  inter- 
mingled the  verily  destitute ;  and  so  to  conduct  the  ministration 
that  they  should  obtain  all  the  benefit,  without  the  encroachment 
of  unworthy  competitors ;  and  so  to  pour  in  a  stream  of  liberality 
on  the  one  hand  that  it  shall  not  be  neutralized  on  the  other,  as  it 
often  is  in  the  case  of  a  public  and  combined  movement  of  char- 
ity, by  a  consequent  and  a  further  depression  in  those  very  wnges, 
the  insufficiency  of  which  is  the  cause  and  the  essence  of  the 
whole  disaster : — In  a  word,  were  it  possible  actually  to  know, 
as  our  Saviour  knew,  the  whole  length  and  breadth  of  the  calam- 
ity— actually  to  bring  it  forth  into  a  distinct  place,  as  our  Saviour 
did,  and,  by  the  might  of  an  uplifted  arm  to  crush  it  there  into 
utter  annihilation — actually  to  send  forth  such  a  flood  of  copious- 


FOR    CHARITABLE    INSTITUTIONS.  39 

ness  on  this  epidemic  plague,  as  to  quench  and  to  overwhelm  it — 
and  so  by  some  process  that  has  not  yet  been  discovered,  to  meet 
the  recurring  visitation,  that  instead  of  an  invariable  cry,  sent  forth 
as  if  from  the  devouring  grave,  that  it  is  not  yet  enough,  some 
fragments  of  the  distribution  were  left  and  gathered  up  after  all 
were  satisfied: — If  it  be  in  the  power  of  assembled  men  thus  to 
surmount  this  evil,  without  the  infliction  of  greater  evil,  both  upon 
the  character  and  interests  of  humanity — then,  let  the  charities  of 
all  be  formed  into  one  great  and  visible  aggregate,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  sweeping  it  away.  But  if  this  is  not  possible  ;  if  man 
cannot  do  with  success  by  a  combined  effort  upon  the  multitude, 
what  every  man  might  do,  each  with  a  measure  of  success,  on  his 
separate  portion  of  it — Then  does  it  not  follow,  that  because  the 
wisdom  of  man  has  failed,  the  will  of  God  should  fail — that  be- 
cause the  contrivance  of  man  should  be  abrogated,  the  command- 
ment of  God  should  be  abrogated — that  because  the  machinery 
of  human  concert  has  been  found  ineffectual  and  may  therefore 
be  dissolved,  the  morality  of  human  conscience  should  also  be  dis- 
solved. Compassion  is  still  the  unrepealed  law  of  every  individ- 
ual heart,  and  that  whether  man  by  his  laborious  combinations 
has  done  more  to  aid  or  to  impede  the  execution  of  its  dictates.  If 
a  right  economy  of  general  and  extended  distribution,  like  one  of 
the  secret  things  of  God,  be  above  his  skill,  that  is  no  reason,  why 
any  of  the  revealed  things  of  God  should  be  deemed  beneath  his 
submission — or  why  he  who  is  rich  in  this  world  should  not  be 
rich  in  good  works,  and  ready  to  distribute,  and  willing  to  com- 
municate. O  no,  my  brethren.  Let  men  controvert,  and  calum- 
niate, and  strive  with  each  other,  in  the  contests  of  mutual  vanity 
and  intolerance,  about  plans — be  assured  that  you  will  never  lay 
hold  on  eternal  life,  unless  you  keep  your  firm  and  your  fast  hold 
upon  principles — that  compassion  is  a  principle  of  uncancelled 
authority ;  nor  can  you  expunge  it  from  your  bosom  without  ex- 
punging from  it  the  resemblance  of  the  Godhead,  in  one  of  the 
brightest  of  its  lineaments — that  in  this,  and  in  every  season  of 
general  disaster,  there  is  a  louder  call  for  its  exercise ;  and  each 
should  now  be  looking  with  a  wakeful  and  a  pitying  eye  to  the 
want  and  the  wretchedness  that  multiply  around  him — that  each 
should  fill  up  his  own  little  sphere  of  attention  with  the  offices  of 
kindness;  and,  in  despite  of  cold  speculation  either  about  the  origin 
or  the  result  of  our  present  suffering,  should  hold,  even  as  our 
Saviour  held,  the  existence  of  suffering  to  be  in  itself  a  claim 
upon  his  sympathies,  to  be  in  itself  a  call  upon  his  services. 

If  any  plan  of  wide  and  artificial  co-operation  shall  be  found  ef- 
fectual, then  the  advocate  of  compassion  does  not  embarrass  this 
plan — he  only  stimulates  its  formation,  and  puts  more  alacrity  into 
all  its  movements.  If  again,  with  all  the  devices  of  a  deep  and 
variously  exercised  sagacity,  no  such  plan  can  be  adjusted — it  is 
not  he  who  is  chargeable,  but  the  impotency  of  human  wisdom,  or 


40  Christ's  example  a  ground 

the  uncontrollable  difficulties  with  which  it  meets  in  the  constitu- 
tion of  human  society.  This  may  be  matter  of  regret,  just  as  we 
regret  any  other  evil  for  which  there  is  no  remedy.  But  if  any- 
thing can  alleviate  this  regret,  or  rather  do  it  away  altogether,  it 
will  be  the  discovery,  that  the  remedy  does  not  lie  in  the  devis- 
ings  of  human  wisdom  at  all,  but  in  the  simple  doings  of  human 
obedience — that  if  each  individual  be  left  to  the  force  of  his  own 
conceptions  of  duty,  and  the  play  of  his  own  unsophisticated  feel- 
ings, a  better  compound  result  will  be  obtained,  than  ever  can  be 
reached  through  the  by-paths,  and  the  intricacies  of  any  great 
political  contrivance — that  there  lie  scattered  through  the  mass 
of  society  such  vigilance  each  for  himself  and  such  sympathy 
each  for  another,  as  if  unmeddled  with  by  legislation,  will  insure 
a  better  state  of  things,  than  legislation  with  all  her  powers  ever 
can  effectuate — that,  even  separate  from  Christianity,  nature  works 
too  powerfully  in  the  hearts  of  individuals — as  that,  if  famine  do 
not  withhold  the  materials  of  subsistence,  no  human  being  ever 
will  be  permitted  to  perish  for  hunger  in  the  sight  of  his  fellows — 
that  if  to  the  compassionate  instincts  of  nature  in  any  given 
neighborhood,  there  be  superadded  the  lights  and  the  lessons  of 
the  Gospel,  there  will  be  placed  in  the  way  of  an  event  so  dis- 
tressing, the  barrier  of  a  moral  impossibility — that  in  such  a  state 
of  things,  abundance  does  find  its  way,  in  a  thousand  rills  of  un- 
seen beneficence,  among  the  habitations  of  the  destitute ;  and 
comes  into  kindlier  and  more  effective  contact  with  human  suffer- 
ing, than  ever  can  be  reached  by  the  unwieldy  operations  of  a 
large  and  general  superintendence — In  other  words,  that  a  prob- 
lem which  is  now  exercising  and  baffling  the  ingenuity  of  man}7 
speculators,  owes  all  its  difficulty  to  the  ambition  of  meddling  with 
a  matter  that  is  too  high  for  them — that  if  they  would  simply  let 
it  alone,  and  leave  nature  and  Christianity  to  their  own  influence, 
they  would  do  for  the  cause  of  philanthropy  what  parliament 
does  for  the  interests  of  trade,  when,  repealing  alike  her  restric- 
tions and  her  encouragements,  she  withdraws  that  hand  by  which 
she  meant  to  help,  but  has  only  embarrassed  the  operations  of  mer- 
chandise. In  a  word,  we  cease  from  our  regret  for  the  inefficiency 
of  plans,  when  made  to  see  that  any  mechanism  of  general  and 
apparent  distribution  which  art  can  devise,  goes  only  to  supersede 
the  operations  of  a  previous  and  a  better  mechanism — that,  in 
spite  of  the  prevalence  of  selfishness  in  our  world,  more  is  done 
for  it  even  now,  by  each  kind-hearted  individual  betaking  himself 
in  simplicity  and  in  silence  to  his  own  separate  walk  of  acquaint- 
anceship among  the  poor,  than  by  all  the  paraded  charities  of  our 
land.  And  the  delightful  anticipation  is  before  us,  that,  in  propor- 
tion as  Christians  are  multiplied ;  in  proportion  as  Christian  in- 
struction is  dealt  out  in  larger  quantities,  among  the  families  of  a 
heretofore  neglected  population  ;  in  proportion  as  the  mass  of  our 
assembled  millions  is  broken  down  into  manageable  fragments 


FOR    CHARITABLE    INSTITUTIONS.  41 

and  facilities  are  opened  for  the  intercourse  of  wisdom  and  piety 
throughout  the  habitations  ;  in  proportion  as  men  go  forth  amongst 
their  fellows  on  the  one  errand  of  preparing  them  for  heaven — in 
that  very  proportion  will  a  mutual  kindness  be  diffused  through 
every  neighborhood,  to  reduce  and  to  sweeten  all  the  hardships 
of  the  pilgrimage  which  leads  to  it — So  that  if  any  hearer  among 
you  is  like  to  be  lost  in  bewilderment  among  the  intricacies  of  a 
plan,  be  assured  that  your  best  contribution  to  the  good  of  society, 
is  to  submit  your  heart  and  conduct  to  the  authority  of  a  prin- 
ciple ;  and,  while  I  proclaim  the  sanctions  which  the  principle  of 
compassion  has  gotten  from  the  law  of  God,  and  the  example  of 
our  Saviour — learn  that  your  duty  is,  under  the  workings  of  this 
sensibility,  never  to  hide  yourself  from  your  own  flesh,  but  to  de- 
vise liberal  things  in  your  heart,  and  to  do  with  your  hand  and 
with  all  your  might  that  which  the  hand  findeth  to  do. 

II.  The  next  passage  which  I  shall  offer,  is  from  John  vi.  25-27. 
Here  there  is  no  miracle  of  loaves  recorded,  and  it  is  likely  that 
none  was  performed.  We  read  only  of  two  instances  of  such  a 
miracle ;  and  in  each  of  them  the  multitude  were  overtaken  with 
hunger.  Even  His  own  disciples,  familiarized  as  they  were  to 
the  supernatural  achievements  of  their  Master,  were  not,  in  either 
of  these  instances,  counting  on  any  miracle  in  their  behalf,  and  far 
less,  it  is  to  be  presumed,  would  the  people  be  counting  on  it.  He, 
in  both  these  cases,  felt  a  movement  of  compassion  towards  them, 
and  He  followed  it.  But  when,  instead  of  hunger  overtaking 
them,  they  voluntarily  courted  hunger  for  the  sake  of  the  indolence 
which  came  before,  and  of  the  relief  which  they  hoped  would  come 
after  it — when,  instead  of  being  assailed  by  it  in  the  shape  of  an 
unlooked-for  visitation,  they  were  actually  drawing  it  upon  them- 
selves in  the  prospect  of  another  compassionate  interference — 
when  dependence  on  the  power  and  the  kindness  of  another,  was 
undermining  the  dependence  they  ought  to  have  felt  on  the  re- 
sources of  their  own  care  and  their  own  industry — let  us  observe 
in  this  passage,  how  the  discerning  eye  of  the  Saviour  marked  the 
first  dawning  of  this  sordid  and  mercenary  expectation  in  their 
hearts,  and  how  immediately  he  repressed  it.  There  was  room 
it  would  appear  in  His  moral  constitution,  both  for  that  softness 
of  character,  which  is  easily  touched  and  awakened  by  the  sight 
of  human  misery ;  and  also  for  that  firmness  of  character,  which 
could  promptly  minister  a  wholesome  correction,  and  set  up  a  pre- 
ventive stay  to  the  progress  of  human  worthlessness.  Those  phi- 
lanthropists, who  calculate  as  well  as  feel  for  the  good  of  humanity, 
may  take  comfort  under  all  the  imputations  of  harshness  and  bar- 
barity which  are  preferred  against  them — when  thus  made  to  un- 
derstand, that  calculation  had  its  place,  as  well  as  feeling,  with 
Him  whose  character  was  above  every  imputation — with  Him  in 
whose  person  all  the  graces  were  mixed  and  attempered  with  all 

6 


42  Christ's   example  a  ground 

the  solidities  of  human  virtue — with  Him  of  whom  it  is  recorded, 
that  He  both  cast  a  weeping  eye  over  the  sufferings  of  our  nature, 
and  looked  with  the  full  scrutinizing  gaze  of  an  unclouded  pene- 
tration on  its  sin  and  on  its  sordidness — who,  on  one  occasion,  put 
forth  a  miracle,  that  he  might  minister  food  to  the  actual  hunger 
of  the  multitude  around  Him  ;  and,  on  another  occasion,  withheld 
that  miracle,  lest  it  should  minister  food  to  the  depravity  of  the 
same  multitude.  There  is  much  to  be  gathered  from  the  way  in 
which  He  at  one  time  relieved  their  necessities,  and  He  at  another 
time  checked  their  expectations — And  let  this  passage  of  our  Sav- 
iour's history,  while  it  may  serve  to  guide,  serve  also  to  console 
every  faithful  disciple  of  His,  who  suffers  under  the  execrations 
of  a  generous  but  mistaken  sensibility  ;  and  that  too,  at  the  very 
time  when  laboriously  toiling  in  all  the  duties  of  benevolence,  and 
anxiously  exploring  a  clear  and  conscientious  path  through  all  its 
difficulties. 

Our  Saviour  could  have  ministered  food  to  the  destitute,  with 
as  great  facility  as  He  ministered  health  to  the  diseased ;  and  it  is 
a  question  worthy  of  being  considered — why  He  was  so  sparing 
in  the  one,  and  so  abundant  and  so  indiscriminate  and  for  anything 
we  read  so  universal  in  the  other  ministration.  We  know  not 
that  He  ever  sent  a  petitioner  for  health  uncured  or  disappointed 
away  from  Him  ;  and  we  know  not,  at  the  same  time,  if  He  ever 
above  twice  in  the  whole  course  of  His  history  upon  earth,  inter- 
posed with  a  miracle  for  the  relief  of  hunger — while,  in  the  pas- 
sage before  us,  it  appears,  that,  instead  of  meeting,  He  rebuked 
the  expectations  of  those  who  were  running  after  Him  in  the  hope 
of  such  a  miracle.  The  truth  is,  that  our  Saviour's  progress  in 
Judea  had  before  this  time  become  a  path  of  public  notoriety. 
The  eye  of  general  observation  was  upon  all  His  footsteps;  and 
the  report  of  every  transaction  of  His  was  now  sure  to  circulate 
through  the  land.  So  that  the  operations  of  His  beneficence  were 
quite  equivalent,  in  effect,  to  the  operations  of  a  proclaimed  char- 
ity ;  and  you  have  only  to  conceive  the  effect  that  it  must  have 
had  on  the  habits  of  the  people — did  the  Saviour,  by  an  indefinite 
multiplication  of  loaves,  hold  out  the  assurance  to  all  who  followed 
Him,  that  they  would  also  be  fed  by  Him.  It  would,  in  fact,  have 
deranged  the  whole  mechanism  of  Jewish  society  ;  and  the  people, 
at  large  from  the  regularities  of  their  wonted  employment,  would 
have  carried  a  thickening  and  accumulating  disorder  along  with 
them  over  the  whole  country.  Every  wholesome  habit  of  industry 
would  have  been  suspended — had  the  great  teacher  of  moral  right- 
eousness  been  thus  transformed  into  the  almoner  of  assailing  mul- 
titudes. And  it  would  not  only  have  brought  a  great  civil  and 
political  mischief  upon  His  countrymen.  It  would  have  also  raised 
a  subtle  and  unsurmountable  barrier,  in  the  way  of  every  conver- 
sion from  sin  unto  God.  It  would  have  marred  the  success  of 
His  own  peculiar  enterprise  in  the  world.     His  object  was  to  lead 


FOR    CHARITABLE    INSTITUTIONS.  43 

men  on  the  path  to  heaven ;  but  it  is  essential  to  the  act  of  walk- 
ing on  this  path,  that  there  be  the  self-denial  of  every  earth-born 
propensity — so  that,  from  the  very  nature  of  the  case,  it  ceases  to 
be  a  movement  heavenwards,  when  men  are  led  to  it  by  the 
bribery  of  this  world's  advantages.  Godliness,  by  being  turned 
into  gain,  ceases  to  be  godliness.  His  undertaking  was  to  accom- 
plish in  the  person  of  every  disciple,  a  triumph  of  the  spiritual  over 
the  sensitive  part  of  the  human  constitution  ;  and  to  raise  the  af- 
fections of  our  degenerate  nature,  from  the  things*  which  are  be- 
neath to  the  things  which  are  above.  Had  He,  in  possession  of 
the  gift  of  multiplying  loaves,  done  without  measure  and  without 
consideration,  what  many  of  our  scheming  philanthropists  would 
have  counted  so  desirable,  He  in  fact  would  have  nullified  His 
own  errand.  He  would  have  stifled  that  principle  which  He 
wanted  to  implant,  and  nourished  that  principle  which  He  wanted 
to  destroy.  He  would  only  have  deepened  and  confirmed  that 
sunken  debasement  into  which  humanity  had  fallen ;  and,  besides 
throwing  the  whole  population  among  whom  He  expatiated  into 
a  state  of  restless  and  dissatisfied  turbulence,  the  only  other  effect 
of  His  visit  would  have  been,  to  have  graven  on  the  character  of 
our  species  the  traces  of  their  selfishness  and  their  sensuality,  more 
indelibly  than  He  had  found  them. 

Something  surely  is  to  be  learned  from  the  caution,  wherewith 
our  Saviour  put  forth  such  miraculous  powers,  as  might  tempt 
the  indigent  away  from  their  regular  occupations.  There  was  an 
unavoidable  publicity  in  His  proceedings  ;  and  there  is  a  publicity 
equally  unavoidable,  in  the  proceedings  of  every  corporate  and 
combined  charity.  The  lesson  of  the  passage  now  under  con- 
sideration, is  not  surely  that  any  private  individual  should  steel 
his  heart  against  the  sufferings  of  the  poverty  that  is  now  in  ex- 
istence. I  have  attempted  to  draw  an  opposite  lesson  from  the 
first  of  these  passages.  But  it  ought  at  least  to  make  everybody 
of  individuals,  advert  to  that  publicity  which  their  doings  have  in 
common  with  the  doings  of  the  Saviour :  and  to  be  alike  cautious 
with  Him  of  the  mischief  which  may  flow  from  it.  We  are  not 
to  overlook  the  distinction  which  obtained  in  His  practice,  between 
miracles  for  the  relief  of  hunger  and  miracles  for  the  relief  of  dis- 
ease. It  may  suggest  a  like  distinction  in  our  practice,  between 
public  measures  for  the  relief  of  hunger  and  public  measures  for 
the  relief  of  disease  ;  and  know,  that,  while  it  is  the  duty  of  each  to 
carry  in  his  bosom  a  heart  most  feelingly  alive  to  all  the  suffer- 
ings of  the  poverty  now  in  existence — it  follows  not,  that  it  is 
therefore  his  duty,  to  enter  into  any  scheme  or  any  organization, 
which  may  have  the  effect  of  bringing  more  poverty  into  exist- 
ence ;  of  alluring  men  from  their  habits  of  self-dependence  and 
self-respect ;  or,  under  the  guise  of  liberality,  of  bringing  a  cruel 
disappointment  on  all  its  desires,  and  stamping  an  impotence  and 
a  folly  on  all  its  devices. 


44  Christ's  example  a  ground 

III.  We  now  come  to  the  third  passage — from  which,  when 
taken  in  connection  with  the  whole  history  of  our  Saviour's  mir- 
acles, we  infer  that  the  caution  which  marked  His  proceedings 
when  acting  in  the  capacity  of  an  almoner,  He  put  altogether 
away  from  Him  when  acting  in  the  capacity  of  a  physician — that, 
whatever  restraint  he  laid  on  His  supernatural  power  of  minister- 
ing to  the  necessities  of  indigence.  He  laid  none  whatever  on  His 
supernatural  power  of  ministering  to  the  necessities  of  disease — 
that,  however  fearful  of  mischief  He  seems  to  have  been,  had  He 
expatiated  with  all  the  publicity,  and  all  the  dependence  that  might 
have  attached  to  Him  on  the  one  walk  of  beneficence,  He  seems  to 
have  had  no  apprehenson  of  danger  to  the  sufferers  themselves 
by  His  expatiating  with  all  publicity  and  freedom  on  the  other 
walk  of  beneficence — healing  every  sickness  and  every  disease 
amongst  the  people ;  leaving  no  recorded  instance  behind  Him, 
of  a  single  petitioner  for  a  cure  being  sent  disappointed  away ; 
and  repeatedly,  are  we  told,  when  surrounded  by  crowds  of  im- 
ploring sick,  looking  to  them,  and  having  compassion  on  them,  and 
healing  them  all. 

It  may  be  right  to  advert  shortly,  to  one  great  distinction  in 
point  of  effect,  between  a  public  and  indefinite  system  of  opera- 
tions for  the  relief  of  indigence,  and  the  same  system  of  operations 
for  the  relief  of  disease — as  it  may  both  serve  to  explain  the  con- 
duct of  our  Saviour,  and  guide  us  in  the  paths  of  a  wise  and  en- 
lightened imitation. 

The  great  cause  of  the  distinction  between  these  two  cases  is 
this. 

To  be  an  object  for  the  one  charity,  a  man  has  only  to  become 
poor ;  and  though  there  be  no  charm  in  poverty  itself,  yet  there 
are  charms  innumerable  in  the  path  of  freedom  and  indolence  and 
dissipation  which  leads  to  it.  Poverty  is  the  spectre,  which  stands 
at  the  termination  of  this  path:  and  so  frightful  in  aspect,  that, 
when  seen,  though  afar  without  mitigation  and  without  disguise,  it 
is  able  to  scare  away  the  great  majority  of  the  world  from  any 
wilful  approximation.  On  the  entrance  of  that  descending  avenue 
which  leads  to  want,  there  lie  a  thousand  temptations  ;  but,  such 
is  the  power  of  human  foresight,  that  a  view  of  the  spectre  at  the 
other  end  is  generally  of  force  enough,  and  counteraction  enough, 
to  neutralize  them.  Now  a  public  charity  for  the  relief  of  want 
disarms  this  spectre.  It  relieves  men  of  their  present  care,  and 
of  their  present  strenuousness  ;  and  so  is  it  ever  found,  that,  in 
proportion  to  the  amplitude  of  such  a  charity,  is  the  number  of 
candidates  for  admission — and  each  having  the  real  qualification 
too,  of  actual  poverty  to  plead  for  them. 

To  be  an  object  for  the  other  charity,  a  man  must  be  under  dis- 
ease ;  and,  unless  when  disease  is  the  effect  of  vicious  indulgence, 
there  is  a  strong  and  universal  recoil  on  the  part  of  nature,  from 
the  very  first  approaches  of  it.     No  man.  generally  speaking,  will 


FOR    CHARITABLE    INSTITUTIONS.  45 

take  on  disease  for  the  sake  of  its  remedy — any  more  than  he  will 
put  out  his  eyes  for  the  benefit  of  a  blind  asylum;  or  will  break  a 
limb,  for  the  sake  of  its  amputation ;  or  will  inflict  any  wilful  mu- 
tilation upon  himself,  for  the  benefit  of  admittance  into  an  infirmary. 
Men  find  their  way  to  the  one  charity  by  a  transition  of  pleasure — 
they  find  their  way  to  the  other  by  the  transition  of  pain.  The 
one  in  this  way  multiplies  its  objects  beyond  its  powers  of  relieving 
them ;  and  thus  adds,  we  believe,  to  the  misery,  as  well  as  to  the 
worthlessness  of  our  species.  The  other  does  not  so  multiply  its 
objects  ;  and  thus,  by  all  the  relief  which  it  deals  out  on  them,  does 
it  effectuate,  without  deterioration  to  the  character,  a  clear  abridg- 
ment on  the  sufferings  of  humanity. 

In  order  to  obscure  the  line  of  distinction  between  these  two 
charities,  it  might  be  alleged,  that,  by  exertion  and  economy  on 
the  part  of  individuals,  each  may  render  himself  independent  on 
charity  for  the  relief  of  his  wants  ;  and  that  it  is  just  by  a  higher 
degree  of  the  same  exertion  and  economy,  that  he  renders  him- 
self independent  on  charity  for  the  relief  of  his  diseases.  And 
certainly,  as  it  does  argue  a  higher  independence  in  fact,  when  a 
man  is  able,  on  his  own  resources,  to  meet  all  the  contingencies 
of  his  lot — so  it  does  argue  a  higher  independence  of  feeling, 
when  a  man  aims,  not  merely  at  paying  for  himself  what  an 
hospital  of  poverty  might  otherwise  offer  to  provide  and  to  pay 
for  him,  but  also  to  pay  for  himself  what  an  hospital  of  dis- 
ease might  otherwise  offer  to  provide  and  to  pay  for  him.  But 
still  the  one  case  does  not  melt  into  the  other  by  a  continuous 
gradation.  There  is  a  broad  and  immutable  line  of  distinction 
between  them.  The  one  enlists  the  human  will  on  the  side  of 
poverty;  and  therefore  is  sure  to  increase  its  ills,  up  to  and  be- 
yond the  measure  of  its  own  alleviations.  The  other  never  can 
enlist  the  human  will  on  the  side  of  disease ;  and  therefore  effec- 
tuates an  unqualified  good,  by  every  inroad  that  it  makes  on  the 
mass  of  involuntary  wretchedness.  Open  the  door  of  any  public 
receptacle  for  indigence ;  and  let  the  whole  of  his  argument  fall 
to  the  ground,  if  the  invariable  result  of  such  an  experiment  has 
not  been, — that  the  amount  of  poverty  left  out,  swells  instanta- 
neously beyond  the  amount  of  all  that  poverty  that  was  untouched 
and  unrelieved  at  the  outset  of  this  operation.  Open  the  door  of 
a  public  receptacle  for  disease ;  and,  by  each  patient  who  enters 
in.  is  the  field  of  general  humanity  more  delivered  from  the  burden 
of  that  distress  which  lay  upon  it.  There  is,  by  a  principle  of  our 
nature,  a  creative  and  multiplying  process  to  fill  up  all  the  vacan- 
cies, which  the  hand  of  a  public  and  permanent  charity  attempts 
to  make  on  the  territory  of  indigence.  There  is  no  such  principle, 
and  no  such  process  for  filling  up  the  vacancies,  which  the  hand 
of  public  charity  makes  on  the  territory  of  disease.  By  every 
shilling  surrendered  for  the  one  object,  you  recede  from  its  ac- 
complishment.    By  every  shilling  surrendered  for  the  other,  you 


46  Christ's  example  a  ground 

draw  nearer  to  its  accomplishment.  Push  the  one  to  its  utter- 
most ;  and  you  arrive  at  the  result  of  a  beggared  population  ab- 
sorbing for  its  maintenance  the  whole  wealth  of  the  country,  and 
the  wealth  of  the  country  withering  into  decay  from  the  decaying 
industry  of  its  population.  Push  the  other  to  its  uttermost ;  and, 
with  a  small  and  definite  fraction  of  the  country's  wealth,  you  ac- 
complish all  that  can  be  accomplished  for  the  mitigation  of  the 
evils,  to  which  by  nature  and  by  providence  the  people  of  every 
country  are  liable.  By  every  step  in  the  progress  of  the  one  op- 
eration, you  feed  and  inflame  the  mischief  which  you  are  vainly 
trying  to  extirpate.  By  every  step  in  the  progress  of  the  other, 
you  make  a  clear  and  satisfying  advance  towards  an  assignable 
fulfilment. 

Doubtless  the  mind  of  an  Icelandic  native  is  sustained  at  a 
higher  pitch  of  anticipation,  and  it  may  go  to  induce  a  habit  of 
more  virtuous  economy — that,  in  addition  to  the  cares  of  the  men 
of  other  countries,  he  has  to  provide  against  the  ravages  of  the 
impending  volcano.  Yet,  if  practicable,  who  would  spare  the 
combined  expense,  that  could  divert  those  fires  to  the  bottom  of 
the  ocean  ?  And  it  nerves  and  elevates  the  character  of  a  north- 
em  peasantry,  that  they  have  to  look  forward  to  the  severities  of 
the  coming  winter ;  yet,  if  it  could  be  purchased,  who  would  not 
think  it  worthy  of  being  so — that,  by  some  mighty  contribution, 
they  obtained  a  softening  of  their  climate  and  an  everlasting  ex- 
emption from  its  storms  ?  And  those  men  who  live  in  a  region 
of  pestilence,  would  have  a  loftier  cast  of  intelligence  than  their 
iellows,  were  they  at  all  times  wisely  and  carefully  prepared  for 
its  periodic  visitations.  Yet  what  surrender  of  wealth  would  be 
counted  extravagant,  that  could  bring  some  healing  stream  to  cir- 
culate through  the  land,  and  to  chase  forever  the  contagion  away 
from  it  ?  And,  in  like  manner,  we,  though  we  live  at  a  distance 
from  these  extremes,  have  still  the  inflictions  of  nature  and  of  ne- 
cessity to  contend  with.  And  it  doubtless  argues  a  higher  tone 
and  state  of  a  family — when,  by  the  moral  force  of  industry  and 
care,  it  can  not  only  provide  for  the  ordinary  accidents,  but  also 
for  the  accidents  of  blindness,  and  derangement,  and  dumbness, 
by  which  any  of  its  members  may  be  visited.  Yet  if  nature  could 
be  bribed  by  money,  tell  me  what  would  be  the  sum  too  large,  to 
obtain  from  her  in  every  district  of  the  land,  a  medicinal  well,  of 
effect  to  cure  and  to  alleviate  each  of  these  calamities?  Would 
not  such  an  accommodation  as  this,  both  of  public  notoriety  and 
of  permanent  continuance,  just  translate  our  country  into  perma- 
nently better  circumstances  than  before  ?  The  supposition  is 
altogether  fanciful.  But  it  serves  our  purpose — if  a  public  insti- 
tution for  any  of  these  objects,  formed  out  of  the  united  sums  of 
many  contributors,  is  just,  in  its  economic  effect  on  the  character 
and  condition  of  our  people,  an  equivalent  to  one  of  these  wells. 
Jt  is  only,  by  the  substitution  of  art  for  nature,  translating  our  land 


FOR    CHARITABLE    IXSTITUTIOXS.  47 

into  the  condition  of  a  more  richly  gifted  country.  By  the  money 
laid  out  on  an  asylum  for  indigence,  you  do  not  strike  out  a  new 
fountain  of  abundance  in  the  country — you  do  not  purchase  ad- 
ditional fertility  to  our  fields — you  do  not  obtain  a  larger  propor- 
tion of  food  to  the  population — you  only  change  the  distribution 
of  the  food,  and  make  it  a  worse  distribution  than  before.  By  the 
money  laid  out  on  an  asylum  for  disease,  you  strike  out  a  new 
fountain  of  health  in  the  country.  You  erect  a  Bethesda,  out  of 
which  there  may  issue  a  refreshing  stream  on  the  sick  and  infirm 
of  our  population.  And  in  all  these  ways,  may  it  be  proved,  that 
there  is  indeed  a  firm  barrier  of  distinction,  between  a  public  and 
indefinite  system  of  relief  for  pauperism,  and  a  public  and  indefi- 
nite system  of  relief  for  disease  ?  The  one,  in  truth,  never  can 
overtake  the  cases  which  its  own  operations  tend  to  multiply.  The 
other  may  be  safely  carried  onwards,  till,  by  the  interest  of  a  per- 
manent capital,  it  becomes  commensurate  forever  to  all  the  de- 
mands which  the  country  may  make  upon  it. 

There  is  not  only  wisdom,  but  a  profoundness  of  wisdom,  in  the 
example  of  our  Saviour.  And  in  the  matters  of  human  charity, 
will  it  be  seen,  that,  both  by  the  actions  of  His  history,  and  the 
admonitions  of  the  greatest  of  His  apostles,  He  not  only  provides 
in  the  best  manner  for  the  worth  of  individual  character — but  that 
He  also  provides  in  the  best  manner  for  the  economic  regulation 
of  the  largest  and  most  complex  societies. 

He  in  the  first  instance  gives  us  an  example  of  the  softest  com- 
passion at  the  sight  of  human  misery  ;  and  He  lets  us  know  by  it, 
that,  if  there  be  actual  hunger  within  our  reach,  for  which  there 
appears  no  remedy — it  is  our  part  to  give  way  to  the  sensibilities 
of  our  nature,  and  to  stretch  forth  a  helping  hand  for  the  purpose 
of  relieving  it.  He  would  have  spared  the  miracle,  had  other  re- 
sources been  at  hand ;  but  the  people  were  far  from  the  food  of 
markets,  or  the  food  of  their  own  habitations.  He  would  have 
left  the  case  to  themselves,  could  they  have  supported  the  fatigue 
of  reaching  it  themselves ;  but  they  would  have  fainted  on  the 
way — and  therefore,  as  an  example  to  us  to  give  in  such  a  pre- 
dicament out  of  our  abundance,  did  He  call  down  a  miracle  from 
Heaven  that  the  people  before  Him  might  eat  and  be  filled. 

In  the  second  instance,  what  He  granted  to  the  urgent  necessi- 
ties of  the  people,  He  refused  to  their  sordid  expectations.  It  was 
not  His  habit  to  provide  food  for  His  followers  in  this  extraordi- 
nary manner.  He  left  poverty  to  the  effect  of  its  natural  exhibi- 
tion on  the  compassionate  nature  of  those  who  were  near  it — and 
a  nature  which  all  His  lessons  are  fitted  to  render  more  compas- 
sionate than  before.  He  must  have  thought  that  it  was  better 
thus  to  leave  it — than  to  bring  out  the  clustering  multitudes 
around  Himself  in  the  capacity  of  an  almoner.  All  His  doings 
were  of  public  notoriety  ;   and,  in  point  of  effect  on  the  comfort 


48  Christ's  example  a  ground 

and  character  of  Bis  countrymen,  would  they  have  been  the  same 
with  the  operations  of  a  public  charity.  And  we  are  not  afraid 
to  affirm — that  generally  it  were  better  still,  to  leave  the  cause  of 
indigence  to  the  play  of  those  innumerable  sympathies,  which  are 
to  be  met  with  in  manifold  detail,  and  in  deeply-extended  diffu- 
sion, throughout  every  community  of  human  beings — than  that, 
by  the  existence  of  a  great  and  widely- visible  institution,  either 
tho  recipients  of  charity  should  be  tempted  away  from  the  re- 
sources of  their  own  industry  ;  or  the  dispensers  of  charity  should 
be  tempted  away  from  the  work  of  each  cultivating  his  own  prov- 
ince, and  lavishing  those  generosities  of  character  which  adorn 
the  man  and  are  altogether  indispensable  to  the  Christian,  on  the 
walk  of  his  own  separate  and  familiar  acquaintanceship. 

But  in  the  third  instance,  when  he  threw  off  all  reserve,  and 
stood  publicly  out  to  the  eye  of  His  countrymen  in  the  capacity 
of  a  divine  teacher — He  also  threw  off  all  reserve,  and  stood  as 
publicly  out  to  the  eye  of  His  countrymen,  in  the  capacity  of  one 
who  healed  all  manner  of  sickness  and  all  manner  of  diseases 
among  the  people.  He  did  not  bring  down  subsistence  by  mir- 
acle, and  cast  it  abroad  amongst  them.  But  He  brought  down 
health  by  miracle,  and  cast  it  abroad  amongst  them.  He  did  not 
encourage  the  people  to  forsake  their  callings  and  to  riot  after 
Him  in  trooping  disorder  through  the  country  for  food  ;  but  He 
laid  no  such  prohibition  on  blameless  and  helpless  disease.  He 
did  not  choose  that  the  report  of  His  appearance,  should  be  the 
signal  for  a  jubilee  of  idleness  and  dissipation  among  His  country- 
men ;  but  when  it  brought  out  the  maimed,  and  the  halt,  and  the 
dumb,  and  the  lunatic,  and  those  who  were  sick  and  sorely  af- 
flicted with  various  infirmities  from  the  surrounding  villages,  He 
sent  them  not  away.  He  saw  a  distinction  between  the  one 
claim  and  the  other,  and  He  acted  upon  it.  The  restless  philan- 
throphy  of  the  day,  ever  scheming  and  ever  intermeddling  with 
the  previous  arrangements  of  nature,  may  gather  some  lessons 
from  that  peculiarity,  which  characterized  the  march  of  His  wise 
and  effective  beneficence  through  the  land  of  Judea.  Whatever 
discouragements  it  may  draw  from  His  example  in  the  erection 
of  an  asylum  for  indigence,  it  can  draw  none  against  the  erection 
of  an  asylum  for  disease;  and  while  the  boding  apprehension  both 
of  moral  and  physical  disaster  hangs  over  the  one  institution,  do 
we  infer,  that,  with  the  other,  may  its  door  be  thrown  open,  and 
all  its  accommodations  be  widened  and  multiplied — till  every  im- 
ploring patient  be  taken  in,  and  a  harbor  of  sufficient  amplitude 
be  provided  for  all  those  sufferings,  which  an  uncontrollable  ne- 
cessity has  laid  upon  our  species. 

I  shall  conclude  this  argument,  with  three  observations.  First, 
we  are  quite  aware  of  the  advantage,  which  they,  who  contend 
for  a  public  and  proclaimed  charity  in  behalf  of  indigence,  appear 
to   have  over  their   antagonists.     On  the  first  blush  of  it,  it  looks 


FOR    CHARITABLE    INSTITUTIONS.  49 

like  the  contest  of  human  sympathy  against  human  selfishness— 
of  kindness  pressing  a  measure  of  positive  beneficence,  against 
steeled  and  hardened  barbarity,  laboring  with  all  its  strenuousness 
to  put  it  down.  We  are  aware  of  the  apparent  advantage  which 
this  gives  to  the  combatants  on  the  other  side  of  this  deeply  inter- 
esting controversy ;  and  we  are  equally  aware  of  the  uncandid 
and  unmerciful  use  that  they  have  made  of  it.  Strange  that  the 
plea  of  compassion  should  be  so  vehemently  urged,  in  defence  of 
a  system  under  which  the  virtue  of  compassion  withers  into  life- 
lessness.  Let  it  grow  as  a  distinct  plant  in  every  heart,  and  be 
cherished  among  the  privacies  of  kindly  and  familiar  neighbor- 
hood ;  and  then  will  it  be  sure  to  scatter  its  innumerable  leaves 
in  every  quarter  of  society,  for  the  healing  of  the  population. 
But  it  loses  all  its  succulence,  and  all  its  blossom,  in  the  chilling 
atmosphere  of  an  almshouse.  Fostered  there  into  a  tree  of  leaf- 
less magnitude,  it  stands  in  monumental  coldness — having  the 
body  without  the  breath  of  charity ;  and,  for  the  support  of  its 
unwieldy  materialism,  is  it  now  drying  up  all  the  native  sensibili- 
ties of  our  land.  If  you  wish  to  restore  benevolence  amongst  us 
to  its  healthful  circulation,  this  forced  and  factitious  excrescence 
must  finally  be  cleared  away.  Thus  and  thus  alone  will  you 
bring  back  to  compassion  all  the  scope  and  all  the  excitement,  by 
which  she  may  break  out  again  into  the  vigor  and  the  efflores- 
cence of  liberty  ;  and  when  so  brought  back,  will  there  arise  a 
thousand  securities  which  are  now  dormant,  against  every  one  of 
those  calamities,  which  law  has  only  aggravated,  in  its  vain 
attempts  to  combat  and  to  reduce  them.  The  lesson  of  our  second 
passage,  so  far  from  counteracting,  only  affords  space  and  encour- 
agement for  the  lesson  of  our  first.  And  in  opposition  to  all  that 
ieclamation  has  uttered,  against  the  aggressions  of  the  under- 
tanding  upon  the  province  of  the  heart,  do  we  aver,  that  never 
were  the  powers  of  the  one  more  directly  engaged,  in  affirming 
me  prerogatives  and  in  vindicating  the  outraged  sensibilities  of  the 
other — than  when  helping  to  release  the  business  of  human 
charity,  from  the  grasp  and  the  regulation  of  human  power:  And 
never  will  political  philosophy  have  rendered  so  brilliant  a  service 
to  the  good  and  to  the  virtue  of  our  species,  as  when  she  rein- 
states charity  upon  its  original  basis ;  and  commits  the  cause  of 
human  suffering  back  again  to  those  free  sympathies  of  nature, 
from  which  it  had  been  so  unwisely  wrested  by  the  hand  of  leg- 
islation. 

But  secondly,  whatever  may  have  been  said  to  damp  or  to 
deaden  our  regards  towards  a  public  institution  for  poverty,  nothing 
has  been  said  to  alienate  from  a  similar  institution  for  disease. 
When  charged  with  the  desolating  influences  of  speculation  upon 
the  heart,  let  it  be  understood,  that  there  is  an  opportunity  on 
which  every  economist  may,  by  his  ample  contribution  in  behalf 
of  a  cause  that  is  free  from  every  exception,  render  to  his  own 

7 


50  CHRIST'S    EXAMPLE    A    GROUND 

favorite  science  the  most  satisfying  of  all  vindications.  If  the 
thought  that  indigence  with  all  its  ills,  is  fostered  and  augmented, 
just  in  proportion  to  the  amount  of  that  fund  which  is  publicly 
provided  for  it — if  this  be  the  thought  which  restrained  his  lib- 
erality, let  us  see  what  is  the  style  in  which  his  liberality  will  ex- 
patiate, when  this  restraint  is  lifted  away  from  it.  In  reference 
to  the  objects  of  a  charity  for  disease,  nature  supplies  him  with  a 
definite  number  of  cases  which  no  benevolence  can  increase; 
and  let  us  therefore  see,  whether  his  benevolence  will  flag  or 
whether  it  will  persist  with  untired  and  undiminished  energy,  till 
the  number  be  overtaken.  If  his  reason  told  him  that  an  asylum 
of  one  kind  may  be  a  vomitory  of  evil,  both  physical  and  moral, 
to  the  people  of  the  land,  and  he  therefore  turned  a  deaf  ear  to 
all  its  applications — let  us  see  what  the  sensibility  and  what  the 
sacrifice  will  be,  when  his  reason  tells  him  that  there  is  an  asylum 
of  another  kind,  which  acts  in  every  instance  as  an  absorbent  of 
human  suffering,  and  in  no  instance  as  a  fountain  of  mischievous 
emanation.  We  do  not  say  it  is  wrong  that  the  heart  should  be 
placed  under  the  custody  of  the  understanding  ;  or  that  the  one 
should  lay  its  limitation  on  the  feelings  and  exercises  of  the  other. 
But  we  cannot  know  the  character  of  the  heart,  till  the  time  and 
the  place  occur  when  every  limitation  is  removed,  and  so,  when 
pleading  for  the  relief  of  disease,  instead  of  a  forbidden  glance 
from  the  intellectual  power,  she  lends  her  full  consent  and  smiles 
her  approving  testimony — when  no  voice  of  boding  anticipation, 
is  lifted  up  to  deafen  the  solicitations  of  charity — when  a  path 
of  safe  and  undoubted  progress  is  opened,  in  which  philanthropy 
may  walk,  till  she  reach  the  full  achievement  of  her  purposes — 
when  she  is  moving  on  ground,  where  every  step  carries  her  for- 
ward in  nearer  approximation  to  a  most  complete  and  gratifying 
accomplishment — when  a  few  of  our  brethren,  whom  the  hand  of 
nature  hath  mutilated  of  their  faculties,  are  standing  before  us 
with  the  credentials  of  their  impressive  claim,  stamped  and  au- 
thenticated upon  their  persons,  and  just  as  if  Heaven  had  affixed  a 
mark  by  which  to  select  and  to  set  them  apart  for  the  unqualified 
sympathy  of  all  their  fellows — when  feeling  urges  us  onwards  in 
behalf  of  misfortune,  so  signalized  and  so  privileged,  and  philoso- 
phy places  no  cold  obstruction  in  her  way — With  all  these  favora- 
ble circumstances  surrounding  the  cause,  and  all  these  incitements 
to  bear  us  forward  to  its  triumphant  consummation,  let  us  not 
cease  to  stimulate  and  to  draw  from  the  resources  of  the  country, 
till  every  such  institution  be  wide  enough  to  take  in  all  for  whose 
relief  it  is  adapted ;  and  till  it  rise  in  the  shape  of  a  permanent 
endowment,  among  the  most  securely  established  and  best  pro- 
vided charities  of  our  land. 

It  is  thus  that  an  institution  for  disease,  should  stand  before  the 
eye  of  the  public  with  a  claim  and  a  character  which  ought  to 
.secure    it    from   every   fluctuation.      It  should  be   brought  out 


FOR    CHARITABLE    INSTITUTIONS.  51 

and  peculiarized,  from  among  the  crowd  of  ambiguous  and  ques- 
tionable charities.  There  are  many  other  advantages  in  the  com- 
bination and  resources  of  a  public  society,  formed  for  the  mitiga- 
tion of  disease,  on  which  I  have  no  time  to  expatiate.  And  I  shall 
only  therefore  remark  of  each  such  institution  that,  if  not  placed 
on  the  stable  foundation  of  a  sure  and  permanent  capital,  there 
ought  at  least  to  be  a  yearly  subscription  ample  enough  for  the 
purpose  of  meeting  every  application.  At  all  events  it  ought  to 
have  such  an  homage  rendered  to  it,  as  to  make  it  independent  of 
any  vindication  which  may  be  offered  from  the  pulpit  in  its  behalf; 
and  it  is  a  reproach  to  an  intelligent  public,  that  ministers  have  to 
descend  so  often  from  the  higher  walk  of  parochial  and  congre- 
gational usefulness,  in  order  to  stimulate  their  languid  energies,  in 
behalf  of  charities  which  ought  long  ago,  to  have  been  made  pro- 
ductive enough  for  their  interesting  but  limited  necessities. 


ON   THE   NECESSITY 


UNITING  PRAYER  WITH  PERFORMANCE 


SUCCESS    OF    MISSIONS. 


Had  the  members  of  some  school  of  philosophy,  by  dint  of  a 
skilful  and  laborious  analysis,  become  profoundly  #conversant  with 
the  mysteries  of  the  human  spirit — Had  they  speculated  with  ac- 
curacy and  effect,  not  merely  on  the  progress  of  an  individual 
mind  from  its  first  rude  and  unformed  elements  to  the  highest  finish 
both  of  its  moral  and  intellectual  cultivation,  but  also  on  the  prog- 
ress of  the  collective  mind  in  society — so  as  to  trace  all  the  con- 
tinuous footsteps  by  which  the  transition  is  made  from  savage  to 
civilized  life — Had  they,  on  the  principles  of  their  new  system, 
devised  a  path  of  tuition,  and  instituted  a  method  of  discipline, 
and  framed  a  book  of  elementary  doctrine  and  scholarship,  in 
virtue  of  which  they  held  themselves  prepared  for  a  grand  phil- 
anthropic experiment  on  some  remote  island  of  barbarians,  yet  in 
the  ferocity  and  primitive  ignorance  of  nature — Had  they  been 
able  so  to  interest  the  public  in  their  scheme,  as  to  be  upheld  by 
them  in  all  the  cost  of  a  benevolent  expedition — and  then  set  forth 
on  the  wide  ocean  of  adventure,  till  they  reached  a  far-distant  and 
solitary  shore,  that  was  peopled  by  an  untaught  tribe  of  idolaters, 
where  all  the  arts  and  habits  and  decencies  of  Europe  were  un- 
known, and  where  some  hideous  misshapen  sculpture  bespoke  a 
paganism  of  the  coarsest  and  most  revolting  character — Had  they, 
in  these  circumstances,  offered  parley  with  the  natives;  and  gained 
their  confidence  :  and  won  such  an  ascendency,  as  that  they 
could  assemble  and  detain  them  at  pleasure  for  the  purposes  of 
education ;  and  furnished,  as  they  were  by  an  enlightened  meta- 
physics with  the  best  and  fittest  lessons  for  men  in  the  infancy  of 
understanding,  brought  their  well-weighed  processes  to  bear  upon 
them — Had  they  got  pupils  from  among  all  their  families,  and,  in 
twenty  years,  wrought  a  change  more  marvellous,  than  twenty 


ON    PRAYER    FOR    THE    SUCCESS    OF    MISSIONS.  53 

centuries,  rolling  over  the  head  of  many  tribes  and  nations  of 
our  world,  have  been  able  to  accomplish — In  a  word,  had  they 
transformed  this  horde  of  cannibals  into  a  lettered  and  human- 
ized peasantry ;  and,  for  the  cruelties  of  their  old  and  haggard 
superstition,  trained  them  to  the  peaceful  charities  of  this  world 
and  to  the  rejoicing  hopes  of  another — Had  they  been  further  en- 
abled to  grace  the  whole  of  this  exhibition  by  such  pleasing  and 
picturesque  accompaniments,  as  those  of  newly-formed  villages, 
and  cultivated  gardens,  and  prosperous  industry,  and  the  whole 
costume  of  industrious  and  well-regulated  life — and  all  this  on  the 
part  of  a  people  who,  but  a  few  years  before,  were  prowling  in 
nakedness,  and  with  fierce  and  untamed  spirit,  could  assemble  in 
delighted  multitudes,  around  the  agonies  of  a  human  sacrifice — 
An  achievement  so  wonderful  as  this  would  have  blazoned  forth 
upon  the  world  as  one  of  the  noblest  triumphs  of  philosophy.  It 
would  have  filled  and  dazzled  the  whole  of  our  literary  republic ; 
and  her  academies  would  have  vied  with  each  other,  in  heaping 
their  orders  and  their  honorary  titles  on  the  men,  who  had  found 
out  that  specific  charm,  by  which  to  reclaim  the  wilds  of  human- 
ity, and  to  quicken  a  hundred  fold  the  march  and  improvement  of 
our  species. 

Now  it  is  not  very  many  years  ago,  since  such  an  enterprise 
was  set  on  foot  by  the  members  of  a  certain  college,  though  not 
a  college  of  literati ;  and  they  carried  out  with  them  a  certain  book 
of  instructions,  though  not  one  philosopher  had  to  do  with  the 
composition  of  it ;  and  they  made  the  very  attempt  which  we  have 
now  specified,  on  a  territory  removed  by  some  thousands  of  miles 
from  the  outskirts  of  civilization  ;  and  through  a  severe  ordeal  of 
ridicule  and  of  reverses  did  they  ply  their  assiduous  task,  and  have 
now  brought  their  experiment  to  its  termination.  And,  what- 
ever the  steps  of  their  process  may  have  been,  there  is  many  an 
eye-witness  who  can  speak  to  the  result  of  it.  The  island  of  Ota- 
heite,  which  teemed  with  the  worst  abominations  of  savage  passion 
and  savage  cruelty,  was  the  selected  arena  on  which  they  tried 
the  virtue  of  their  peculiar  specific ;  and,  whatever  the  rationale 
of  its  operation  may  have  been,  there  is  no  doubt  as  to  the  cer- 
tainty of  the  operation  itself.  The  savages  have  been  humanized. 
The  rude  and  hideous  characteristics  of  the  savage  state  have  all 
disappeared.  A  nation  of  gross  and  grovelling  idolaters  has  be- 
come a  nation  of  rational  and  kindred  and  companionable  men ; 
and,  furnished  now  as  they  are  with  a  written  language,  and  hav- 
ing access  by  authorship  and  correspondence  to  other  minds  and 
other  countries  than  their  own — do  the  lights  of  Christendom  now 
shine  full  upon  their  territory.  And  it  is  indeed  a  wondrous 
transformation — to  look  at  their  now  modest  attire,  and  their  now 
sweet  and  comfortable  habitations,  and  their  village  schools,  and 
their  well-ordered  families,  and  their  infant  literature,  and  their 
new-formed  alphabet,  and  a  boyhood  just  taught  and  practised  like 


54  ON    PRAYER    FOR 

our  own  in  the  various  branches  of  scholarship  ;  and,  what  perhaps 
poetry  even  though  apart  from  religion  would  most  fondly  seize 
upon  of  all — the  holiness  of  their  sabbath-morn ;  and  the  chime 
of  its  worship-bell,  now  breaking  for  the  first  time  on  the  ear  of 
the  delighted  mariner  who  hovers  upon  their  shore,  and  recog- 
nized by  him  as  a  sound  that  was  before  unheard,  throughout  the 
whole  of  that  vast  Pacific,  in  the  solitude  of  whose  mighty  waters 
this  island  had  lain  buried  and  unknown  for  so  many  ages.  Yes ! 
all  this  has  undoubtedly  been  done;  but  then  a  few  Gospel  mis- 
sionaries had  the  doing  of  it ;  and  they  tell  us  that  the  whole 
charm  and  power  of  this  marvellous  translation  are  to  be  found 
in  the  Bible  and  in  its  cabalistic  orthodoxy;  and  they  talk  more- 
over of  prayers  and  outpourings  and  mystic  influences  from  on 
high,  which  all  the  science  of  all  our  universities  cannot  lead  us 
to  comprehend  or  in  any  way  to  sympathize  with — And  thus,  as 
the  compound  effect  of  this  whole  exhibition  on  many  spirits,  are 
there  an  incredulity ;  and  a  contempt :  and  at  the  same  time  an 
astonishment  at  a  great  moral  phenomenon,  the  truth  of  which  is 
forced  upon  them  by  the  evidence  of  their  senses ;  and  withal,  we 
fear,  a  still  resolute  determination  to  nauseate  with  all  their  might 
that  peculiar  evangelism,  which  has  been  the  instrument  of  the 
most  gigantic  stride,  that  was  ever  made  by  barbarians  on  the 
road  to  civilization  and  virtue.  And  thus  upon  them  do  we  per- 
ceive perhaps  the  most  striking  illustration  of  that  text  which  can 
be  given — who,  "  when  God  worketh  a  work  in  their  days,  will 
in  no  wise  believe  though  a  man  should  declare  it  unto  them ;" 
but  what  they  would  not  believe  they  will  be  made  to  behold — 
though,  still  persisting  in  their  contempt,  it  will  be  the  beholding 
of  despisers  •'  who  wonder  and  perish." 

Now  this  appears  to  us  the  precise  feeling  of  secular  and  merely 
scientific  men  in  reference  to  Bible  and  missionary  societies. 
These  are  the  likely  instruments  under  which  the  world  will  at 
length  be  christianized  ;  and,  by  whose  power  we  think,  that  there 
are  a  stir  and  an  aspect  and  a  sort  of  heaving  even  now  towards 
millennium.  The  instance  just  quoted,  is  in  itself  a  fine  miniature 
exhibition  of  that  which  is  destined  at  length  to  be  universal — like 
the  size  of  a  man's  hand  on  a  very  distant  horizon ;  but  the  token 
of  a  general  rain,  the  clouds  and  magazines  of  which  will  spread 
over  the  whole  firmament  of  heaven,  and  descend  in  a  universal 
shower  on  the  thirsty  world  which  is  beneath  it.  The  little  stone 
is  now  distinctly  visible  to  those  who  are  looking  for  it;  and  from 
the  visible  it  will  rise  into  the  conspicuous,  so  as  to  obtrude  itself 
at  length  on  the  notice  of  the  contemptuous  and  the  careless ;  and 
at  last  will  attain  to  the  size  of  a  mountain  that  shall  fill  the  whole 
earth.  Meanwhile  Bible  and  missionary  societies  are  now  help- 
ing to  build  this  spiritual  Jerusalem ;  and  much  of  most  essen- 
tial but  unobserved  ground- work  must  be  done,  ere  the  rising 
architecture  shah  be  very  discernible  ;  and  many  are  the  laborers 


THE    SUCCESS    OF    MISSIONS.  55 

who  must  ply  for  years  at  the  work  of  translations,  and  the  work 
of  scholarship,  ere  the  Gospel  shall  be  brought  in  its  direct  and 
naked  force  upon  the  consciences  of  the  sinners  in  all  nations ; 
and  assiduous  must  be  the  calls  on  the  liberality  of  a  Christian 
public,  to  uphold  this  work  of  faith  and  of  patience  ;  and  during 
the  whole  of  its  progress,  the  resistance  and  the  ridicule  of  despi- 
sers,  are  just  what  we  should  be  prepared  to  look  for.  And  ac- 
cordingly, in  spite  of  all  the  patronage  that  has  descended  on  these 
institutions — still  will  we  venture  to  affirm,  that  the  great  major- 
ity of  the  cultivated  intellect  in  our  land,  is  either  in  a  state  of 
contempt  or  in  a  state  of  hostility  against  them — that  the  charge 
of  an  obscure  and  ignoble  fanaticism  is  still  made  to  rest  on  the 
design  and  operation  of  these  societies — that  the  example  of  suc- 
cess we  have  now  quoted,  which,  had  it  been  the  success  of  a 
philosophical  experiment,  would  have  rung  in  high  gratulation 
among  all  the  savans  of  all  the  institutes  in  Europe,  has  from  its 
being  the  success  of  a  Christian  experiment,  scarcely  ever  reached 
them  ;  or,  if  the  report  have  fallen  by  accident  upon  their  ears,  it 
has  been  like  the  sound  of  a  vague  and  distant  something  in  which 
they  had  no  concern.  In  short,  there  is  an  apathy  about  the 
whole  enterprise — a  cold  and  disdainful  feeling  towards  the  chris- 
tianization  of  the  world. 

Now  though  much  of  this  is  to  be  ascribed  to  man's  natural  en- 
mity against  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ,  yet,  along  with  the  dislike, 
there  is  an  incredulity,  and  an  incredulity  that  can  allege  for  itself  a 
number  of  seemly  arguments.  The  most  plausible  of  these  is,  the 
utter  inadequacy  of  the  proposed  means  to  the  proposed  end  of  the 
societies  in  question.  It  is  to  the  spread  of  the  Bible,  and  to  the  read- 
ing of  the  Bible,  and  to  the  charm  of  the  preacher's  voice  when 
he  urges  home  its  lessons — it  is  apparently  to  these,  that  they  look 
for  a  regenerated  species.  To  means  so  utterly  insignificant,  the 
end  appears  to  be  out  of  all  measure  romantic  and  impracticable 
and  hopeless.  This  goes  a  certain  way  to  explain  the  contempt 
of  adversaries  for  the  Bible  enterprise.  They  do  not  see  how  this 
book  of  antique  phrase,  and  of  hidden  characters,  is  to  work  so 
miraculous  a  change  on  the  spirit  and  the  moral  habitude  of  na- 
tions. They  cannot  see  by  what  inexplicable  charm  it  is,  that 
the  face  of  our  whole  world  is  to  be  so  lightened  and  transformed 
by  it.  Like  the  enemies  of  Samson,  they  have  not  yet  discovered 
wherein  it  is  that  the  secret  of  its  great  strength  lieth  ;  and  all 
their  ideas  of  its  powerlessness  are  abundantly  confirmed  by  what 
they  see  of  its  slender  efficacy  among  our  home  population. 
When  they  look  to  the  palpable  exhibition  of  this  book,  lying 
neglected  and  unopened  on  the  shelves  of  almost  all  our  habita- 
tions ;  and  notice  how  very  small  a  space  in  the  system  of  human 
affairs,  is  taken  up  by  the  perusal  of  it ;  and  estimate  aright  the 
wide  distance  which  obtains  between  its  spirit  and  the  spirit  of 
those  who  profess  to  own  and  to  revere  it ;  and  see  how,  even  in 


56  ON    PRATES    FOR 

that  very  territory  of  Christendom  where  the  silence  originated, 
it  tells  with  no  practical  or  perceptible  influence  on  the  mass  of 
families  ;  and  can  shrewdly  remark,  after  all,  that  humanity,  even 
in  England,  takes  very  much  its  own  spontaneous  way,  and  that 
really  there  seems  no  distinct  or  satisfying  proof  of  any  sensible 
control,  which  the  Bible  has  on  its  business  or  its  morals  or  the 
general  spirit  and  economy  of  its  people — it  is  truly  natural  in 
these  circumstances  to  ask,  if  the  Bible  have  been  of  such  minute 
and  slender  efficacy  at  home,  by  what  inscrutable  operation  do 
we  think  that  it  is  to  achieve  a  transformation  in  every  way  so 
marvellous  and  so  magical  abroad  ?  If  after  the  residence  and 
the  reading  of  centuries  amongst  us,  the  aspect  of  our  present 
British  society  is  still  as  distant  as  possible  from  that  which  we 
conceive  of  the  aspect  of  millennium — how  do  we  imagine,  that 
by  the  transportation  of  Bibles  and  missionaries  into  heathen 
lands,  a  new  moral  scenery  is  forthwith  to  emerge ;  and  that  the 
millennium  of  which  we  see  no  semblance  immediately  around 
us,  is  first  to  break  forth  on  some  distant  and  unknown  wilder- 
ness ?  It  is  thus  that  among  men  of  firm  and  secular  understand- 
ings, there  is  a  certain  experimental  feeling,  as  if  the  whole  spec- 
ulation were  vain  and  visionary  and  most  wildly  extravagant. 
It  is  looked  to  as  one  of  those  delusive  novelties,  that  will  have  its 
meteoric  course,  and  then  go  into  oblivion,  among  the  other 
popular  follies  which  had  their  day  and  are  forgotten.  While  the 
cry  and  fashion  of  the  thing  last  it  is  thought,  money  will  be 
raised ;  and  Bibles  will  be  exported ;  and  whole  packages  will  be 
landed  on  the  shores  of  idolatry  ;  and  missionaries  will  go  forth 
and  excite  for  a  time  a  sort  of  marvel  and  interest  among  the 
natives,  at  the  very  unusual  kind  of  wares  in  which  they  deal  and 
the  strange  proposals  which  they  have  to  offer — but  that,  in  a  few 
little  years,  all  will  vanish  into  impotency,  and  leave  not  one  trace 
behind  of  that  fantastic  crusade  which  we  are  now  called  upon  to 
succor  and  to  sustain. 

These  are  plausible  discouragements,  and  they  do  operate  with 
great  force  on  nature  and  on  the  sagacity  of  natural  men.  They 
give  a  certain  character  of  experimental  wisdom  to  their  oppo- 
sition against  that  enterprise  for  which  we  are  contending ;  and 
for  the  neutralizing  of  which,  therefore,  there  is  a  peculiar  impor- 
tance in  every  fair  example  that  can  be  quoted  of  missionary  suc- 
cess. The  experience  of  this  success  has  greatly  multiplied  of 
late  years  ;  and  meanwhile  there  are  two  distinct  considerations 
that  I  would  strongly  urge,  for  the  purpose  of  sustaining  your  faith 
and  the  constancy  of  your  friendship  to  the  cause. 

The  first  consideration  that  I  would  urge,  is  the  certain  fitness 
of  the  Bible  to  that  object  lor  which  it  has  been  framed.  You 
must  not  forget  that  this  book  of  doubted  and  decried  and  dis- 
owned efficacy,  is  the  word  of  God — that  it  is  a  message  con- 
structed by  Him,  and   specially  adapted  by  His  wisdom  to  the 


THE    SUCCESS    OF    MISSIONS.  57 

special  object  of  recalling  a  lost  world  from  its  state  of  exile  and 
degeneracy — that  such  is  declared  to  be  the  power  of  its  doc- 
trine, as  that,  whensoever  it  is  received,  there  are  received  along 
with  it  the  forgiveness  of  sin,  and  ability  from  on  high  to  dethrone 
sin  from  its  ascendency  over  our  moral  nature — that,  with  this 
chosen  instrument  of  God  for  the  recovery  of  our  fallen  race,  there 
is  a  capacity  for  all  those  high  and  heavenly  purposes  which  it  is 
destined  to  accomplish — that  we  are  not  to  despair,  because  of  the 
long  period  of  this  world's  resistance  and  this  world's  unconcern, 
for  this  is  what  the  prophecies  of  the  Bible  itself  have  led  us  to  an- 
ticipate— that  meanwhile,  and  in  the  face  of  these  prophecies,  there 
is  a  precept  of  standing  obligation  to  go  and  preach  this  Gospel 
unto  all  nations ;  and  to  go  and  carry  this  message  to  every  crea- 
ture under  heaven — and,  finally — as  the  fruit  of  a  patience  that 
must  weather  every  discouragement,  and  of  a  perseverance  that 
must  be  manfully  sustained  amid  the  revilings  of  a  whole  mul- 
titude of  scorners,  and  of  a  faith  which  against  hope  will  believe 
in  hope  that  what  God  hath  promised  He  is  also  able  to  perform, 
are  we  told  of  a  latter-day  glory  which  is  to  fill  the  whole  earth  ; 
and  that  there  is  a  veil  which  is  to  be  lifted  off  from  the  eyes  of 
all  nations ;  and  that  another  spirit  will  at  length  descend  upon 
the  world,  than  that  by  which  it  has  so  long  been  actuated  ;  and 
that  the  obstinacy  of  the  human  heart  will  at  length  give  way, 
under  the  assurances  of  redeeming  mercy — So  as  that  the  Gos- 
pel, now  so  unproductive  of  any  moral  or  spiritual  harvest,  shall 
at  length  find  free  course  and  be  everywhere  glorified — turning 
the  earth  into  a  well-watered  garden,  and  causing  it  from  one  end 
to  another  to  abound  in  all  the  fair  and  pleasant  fruits  of  right- 
eousness. 

The  second  consideration  that  I  would  urge,  for  the  purpose  of 
sustaining  our  confidence  in  the  future  triumph  and  enlargement 
of  this  cause,  is  the  efficacy  of  prayer.  There  is  something  in 
the  whole  temper  and  habit  of  philosophy,  that  leads  us  to  distrust 
the  virtue  of  this  expedient.  There  is  even  something  in  the 
philanthropic  activity  of  our  age,  that  lures  away  the  heart  from 
its  dependence  upon  God ;  and  makes  it  confide  to  the  powers  of 
human  agency  alone,  that  which  never  will  be  made  to  prosper 
without  the  hand  of  the  Almighty  being  both  acknowledged  and 
implored  in  it.  When  one  sees  so  many  societies,  with  the  skil- 
ful mechanism  of  their  various  offices  and  appointments  and  com- 
mittees ;  and  sums  up  the  contributions  that  are  rendered  to  them  ; 
and  looks  to  the  train  of  their  auxiliaries  all  over  the  land ;  and 
hears  the  annual  eloquence,  and  peruses  the  annual  reports  which 
are  issued  forth  from  the  fountain-heads  of  the  whole  operation  : 
and  further  witnesses  the  spirit  and  agency  and  busy  earnestness, 
wherewith  all  their  proceedings  are  conducted — So  goodly  an 
apparatus  as  this,  is  apt  to  usurp  the  hope  and  the  confidence 
which  should  be  placed  in  God  only.     The  instrument  becomes 

8 


58  ON    PRAYER    FOR 

an  idol ;  and  He  who  is  jealous  of  His  honor,  and  who  will  have  the 
power  of  His  divinity  recognized  throughout  every  step  of  that 
process  which  leads  to  the  regeneration  of  our  world,  may  choose 
to  mortify  the  proud  anticipations  of  those  who  calculate  on  their 
own  strength  and  their  own  wisdom.  The  Christians  who  flour- 
ished in  the  days  of  Puritanism,  that  Augustan  age  of  Christianity 
in  England,  were  men  of  prayer  but  not  men  of  missionary  per- 
formance ;  and  the  Christians  of  our  present  day  are  men  of  per- 
formance, but  need  perhaps  to  be  humbled  by  crosses  and  adver- 
sities into  men  of  prayer.  It  is  out  of  the  happy  combination  of 
these  two  habits,  that  the  evangelizing  of  the  nations  is  to  come. 
Both  must  go  together,  or  no  solid  and  enduring  result  will  come 
forth  of  the  experiment.  It  is  by  the  neglect,  either  of  the  one 
or  the  other  of  these  capabilities,  that  we  explain  the  languid  and 
stationary  condition  of  the  Gospel  for  so  many  ages ;  and  as  the 
suggestion  of  some  new  expedient,  before  unadverted  to,  like  the 
breaking  up  of  new  ground  or  the  opening  of  a  tract  before  unex- 
plored, raises  the  sinking  hopes  of  a  disappointed  adventurer — so 
when  the  praying  disciple  is  taught  the  necessity  of  labor,  and  the 
laborious  disciple  is  taught  the  necessity  of  prayer — when  these 
two  elements  meet  together,  and  co-operate  as  they  did  in  the  days 
of  the  apostles — when  our  men  of  devotion  become  men  of  dil- 
igence, and  our  men  of  diligence  become  men  of  devotion — It  is 
from  this  union  of  humble  hearts  with  busy  hands,  that  we  would 
date  the  commencement  of  a  new  and  a  productive  era  in  the 
Church's  history  upon  earth :  And  we  doubt  not  that  what  the  old 
missionary  Elliot  reported  and  left  on  record  of  his  own  expe- 
rience, will  be  found  true  of  the  collective  missionary  experience 
of  all  ages,  that  "  it  is  in  the  power  of  pains  and  of  prayers  to  do 
anything." 

And  we  do  look  on  the  example  already  quoted  as  a  verifica- 
tion of  this.  We  are  old  enough  to  recollect  the  high-blown 
spirit  of  adventure  in  which  the  first  mission  to  Otaheite  was  un- 
dertaken ;  and  with  what  eclat  the  missionary  vessel  went  forth 
upon  her  voyage,  as  if  the  flags  and  ensigns  of  victory  were 
already  streaming  in  the  gale  ?  and  with  what  eloquence  were 
pictured  forth  all  the  chances,  if  not  all  the  certainties,  of  success. 
We  doubt  not  that  many  were  dazzled  into  an  earthly  confidence, 
when  they  looked  to  the  complete  equipment  of  all  the  human  se- 
curities, that  were  so  abundantly  provided  for  the  accomplishment 
of  this  great  enterprise.  And  He,  at  whose  disposal  are  all 
the  elements  of  Nature,  did  carry  it  in  safety  to  the  shore.  But 
He,  at  whose  disposal  also  are  all  the  elements  of  the  moral  world, 
taught,  by  humbling  experience,  that  for  these  too  He  must  be 
inquired  after  ;  and  a  cloud  of  disgrace  and  disaster  hung  for 
years  over  the  enterprise ;  and  the  spirit,  which  worketh  in  the 
children  of  disobedience,  stood  its  ground  among  the  natives  ;  and, 
more  woful  still,  the  spirit  of  apostasy  made  ravage  among  the 


THE    SUCCESS    OF    MISSIONS.  .")'J 

missionaries  themselves  ;  and  well  can  we  remember  the  derision 
and  the  triumph  of  infidelity  upon  the  misgiving  of  this  sanguine 
speculation.  We  doubt  not  that  many  were  effectually  taught  in 
the  arts  of  patience  and  prayer  by  this  fatherly  correction  ;  and 
led  to  look  from  the  visible  apparatus  to  the  unseen  Guide  and 
mover  of  it ;  and  that  there  was  a  busier  ascent  of  importunities 
to  heaven,  and  a  louder  knocking  than  before  at  the  door  of  the 
upper  sanctuary.  And  certain  it  is,  that,  after  a  season  of  severe 
but  salutary  chastisement,  an  influence,  far  too  sudden  and  diffu- 
sive to  be  interpreted  by  any  ordinary  causes,  came  down  upon 
the  island ;  and,  by  a  miracle  as  stupendous  as  if  it  had  been 
newly  summoned  from  the  deep,  do  we  now  behold  it  a  land  of 
genial  dwelling  places — the  quiet  and  lovely  home  of  a  christian- 
ized nation. 

It  were  now  a  topic  by  far  too  unwieldy,  did  we  attempt  to  state 
the  philosophy  of  prayer — or  to  meet  the  antipathies  of  those 
who  have  explored  nature,  and,  as  far  as  the  light  of  science  can 
penetrate,  have  found  in  all  her  ways  a  constancy  that  is  inflexi- 
ble. But  you  can  at  least  be  made  to  understand  how  it  is,  that 
the  study  of  this  world's  unvaried  mechanism,  should  have  put  to 
flight  that  host  of  living  and  supernatural  agencies  wherewith  at 
one  time  it  was  held  to  be  actuated — how  after  such  an  abundant 
discovery  as  we  now  have  of  those  trains  and  successions,  that 
appear  to  be  invariable  and  altogether  to  make  up  the  history  of 
our  universe,  the  visions  of  the  old  mythology  should  all  have 
been  dissipated  ;  because,  instead  of  each  department  in  nature 
being  ruled  by  its  own  presiding  divinity  whom  it  is  the  part  of 
superstition  to  implore,  in  each  there  are  its  own  peculiar  but 
steady  and  unchanging  processes  which  it  is  the  part  of  philoso- 
phy to  investigate — that  thus  the  spectres  of  a  fabled  imagery 
have  now  been  swept  away  ;  and  nature,  instead  of  a  haunted 
fairy-land,  is  now  regarded  as  the  stable  and  everlasting  repository 
of  innumerable  sequences,  in  whose  rigid  uniformity  we  see 
nought  of  the  caprice  of  will  but  all  the  certainty  of  mechanism. 
And  so  in  this  our  enlightened  day,  there  is  no  account  taken  of 
a  spirit  mat  resides  in  the  thunder ;  or  of  a  spirit  in  the  air,  at 
whose  bidding  the  storm  might  either  be  hushed  or  awakened  ;  or 
of  a  spirit  in  the  angry  deep,  who  might  add  to  the  wild  uproar 
of  the  tempest  by  mixing  his  own  element  with  that  which  is 
wielded  by  another  potentate.  The  earth  is  now  unpeopled  of 
its  demigods  ;  and  the  substitution  of  the  laws  of  nature  in  their 
place,  has  often  been  extolled  as  the  best  service  which  philosophy 
has  rendered  to  our  species. 

You  may  now  perhaps  see,  by  how  likely  and  continuous  a 
transition  it  is.  that  men  may  pass  from  the  extreme  of  supersti- 
tion to  the  extreme  of  philosophical  impiety.  After  that  nature 
has  been  rescued  by  philosophy  from  the  dominion  of  separate  and 
subordinate  deities,  it  may  be  placed  by  the  same  philosophy, 


60  ON    PRAYER    FOR 

under  the  absolute  and  irreversible  dominion  of  secondary  causes. 
To  guard  this  new  dominion  and  make  it  inflexible,  a  supreme  and 
eternal  spirit  may  even  be  disowned ;  or,  at  all  events,  it  might  be 
reckoned  indispensable,  that  He  never  should  put  forth  His  hand 
on  the  regularities  of  that  universe  which  He  Himself  has  estab- 
lished. It  might  be  difficult  to  assign  the  place  or  the  pre-emi- 
nence of  such  a  God  over  His  own  workmanship  ;  or  to  under- 
stand how  He  is  admitted  to  a  share  in  the  government  of  His 
own  world.  But  it  is  at  least  the  imagination  of  many  a  phi- 
losopher, that  all  must  give  way  to  the  omnipotence  and  the  cer- 
tainty of  nature's  laws.  The  interposition  of  the  divine  will  with 
these  is  utterly  excluded  from  his  creed  ;  and  the  efficacy  of 
prayer  would  be  deemed  by  him  a  monstrous  inroad  on  that  con- 
stancy, which  he  holds  to  be  unalterable.  It  is  thus,  that,  along 
with  the  mythology  of  Paganism,  the  Theism  of  Christianity  is 
apt  to  be  swept  away  ;  and  the  system  of  nature  is  reduced  to 
an  economy  of  blind  and  unconscious  fatalism. 

We  are  obviously  on  the  confines  of  a  subject,  that  is  greatly 
too  ponderous  for  a  single  essay  ;  and  there  is  imperious  necessity 
for  limiting  ourselves.  Let  us  only  then  say  further,  that  it  does  not 
appear  why  an  answer  to  prayer  might  not  be  given  ;  and  yet 
all  the  established  sequences  of  our  world  be  maintained  in  their 
wonted  order,  as  far  back  as  philosophy  can  discover  them.  In- 
stead of  God  dispensing  with  the  secondary  causes,  when  He 
meets  and  satisfies  our  prayers,  they  may  be  the  very  instruments 
by  which  He  fulfils  them.  When  He  hearkens  to  the  supplication 
that  ascends  for  a  prosperous  missionary  voyage — He  does  not 
send  forth  a  miraculous  impulse  upon  the  vessel,  but  causes  the 
very  wind  to  arise,  which,  by  the  laws  of  motion,  should  bear  her 
onward  to  the  destined  haven.  Even  this  wind  might  not  be 
originated  by  miracle,  but  spring  up  from  that  previous  condition 
of  the  air  and  the  vapor  and  the  heat,  which,  by  the  laws  of 
meteorology,  should  cause  that  very  gale  to  blow  by  which  the 
service  has  been  accomplished.  And  so  to  the  uttermost  limits  of 
science,  to  the  full  extent  of  her  possible  observations,  all  might 
appear  to  move  in  strictly  undeviating  order.  But  still  ulterior 
to  this — and  between  the  widest  confines  of  all  which  nature  can 
see  upon  the  one  hand,  and  that  throne  whence  the  Author  of 
nature  issues  forth  His  mandates  upon  the  other — there  is  a  hid- 
den intermediate  process,  which  connects  the  purposes  of  the 
divine  mind,  with  the  visible  phenomena  of  that  universe  which 
He  has  created  :  And,  not  among  the  palpable  things  which  lie  in 
the  region  of  observation,  but  among  the  secret  things  which  lie 
in  the  dark  and  the  deep  abyss  that  is  between  the  farthest  reach  of 
man's  discovery  and  the  forthgoings  of  God's  will — it  is  among 
these,  where  that  responsive  touch  may  be  given  by  the  finger  of 
the  Almighty,  which  shall  guide  the  mechanism  of  our  world  and 
without  thwarting  any  one  of  its  laws.     He  moves  those  springs 


THE    SUCCESS    OP    MISSIONS.  61 

which  be  placed  behind  the  curtain  of  sense  and  observation  :  and 
as  He  may  thus,  in  subserviency  to  our  prayers  for  the  success  of 
a  missionary  voyage,  direct  the  processes  of  meteorology  without 
deranging  them — so,  in  subserviency  to  our  prayers  for  the  suc- 
cess of  misssionary  work,  he  may  so  direct  the  metaphysics  of 
the  human  spirit  in  the  whole  business  of  conversion,  as  not  to 
violate  any  one  of  the  laws  or  the  processes  of  human  thought. 
It  is  thus  that  we  may  live  under  the  canopy  of  a  special  provi- 
dence, even  on  that  platform  of  sensible  things  where  all  the  trains 
and  successions  are  invariable.  It  is  thus,  that,  at  one  and  the 
same  time,  we  may  be  under  the  care  of  a  presiding  God,  and 
among  the  regularities  of  a  harmonious  Universe. 

But  after  all,  this  contempt  for  prayer  and  for  the  doctrine  of 
its  efficacy,  is  not  more  resolvable  into  a  perverse  philosophy, 
than  it  is  resolvable  into  irreligion — into  that  spirit  of  inveterate 
worldliness,  which  is  satisfied  with  things  as  they  are  and  cares 
not  for  any  transformation  ;  which  wants  not  the  repose  of  nations 
to  be  disturbed,  by  this  restless  and  aggressive  proselytism  ;  and 
would  rather  that  Paganism  were  left  to  remain  fixed  as  it  has 
been  for  countlsss  generations,  in  its  own  deep  and  rooted  anti- 
quity. They  hate  all  innovation  on  the  existing  state  of  things  ; 
and,  as  men  will  shut  their  eyes  to  avoid  the  spectacle  of  that 
which  they  dislike,  so  will  they  close  their  understandings  against 
the  light  of  that  evidence,  by  which  it  now  becomes  every  day 
more  manifest,  that  we  are  on  the  eve  of  great  moral  and  spiritual 
changes — that  the  world  is  heaving  in  fact  towards  some  mighty 
and  wondrous  renovation — and  that  on  the  ruins  of  its  present 
depravity,  there  will  at  length  be  established  an  order  of  truth 
and  charity  and  righteousness.  This  is  all  romance  to  the  eye  of 
their  earthly  understanding,  and  they  will  in  no  wise  believe 
though  a  man  declare  it  unto  them  ;  and,  despising  as  they  do  the 
Gospel  at  bottom,  they  despise  every  account  which  reaches  them 
of  its  progress — So  that,  when,  instead  of  a  report  heard  with  the 
hearing  of  the  ear,  it  reaches  them  in  characters  of  nearness  and 
authenticity — still,  without  the  sympathy  and  without  the  discern- 
ment of  its  principles,  they  only  marvel  at  what  they  cannot  com- 
prehend, and,  looking  on  to  a  conversion  of  multitudes  in  which 
they  do  not  partake,  they  wonder  and  they  perish. 

Let  me  conclude  with  one  or  two  brief  sentences  of  personal 
application.  Those  who  dislike  any  inroad  to  be  made  on  the 
deep  repose  of  heathenism,  we  would  warn  to  be  careful,  that  they 
have  not  a  dislike  as  violent  to  any  inroad  being  made  on  the 
deep  lethargy  of  their  own  souls.  Those  who  think  of  friendly 
islanders  and  mild  or  peaceful  Hindoos,  that  they  stand  in  need 
of  no  transformation — let  them  tell  whether  they  do  not  think  the 
very  same  thing  of  themselves.  They  would  rather  that  the 
heathen  were  let  alone  ;  and  would  they  not  rather  that  them- 
selves were  let  alone  also  1  and  are  they  not  as  incredulous  about 


62  ON    PRAYER    FOR    THE    SUCCESS    OF    MISSIONS. 

the  need  of  a  regeneration  for  themselves  as  individuals,  as  they 
are  about  the  regeneration  of  a  whole  people  ?  Is  there  not  about 
them  a  general  distrust  of  the  whole  matter? — and  would  they 
not  nauseate  the  ministers  who  speak  to  them  of  the  conversion  of 
their  own  spirit,  just  as  honestly  and  heartily  as  they  nauseate  the 
missionaries  who  go  forth  to  the  conversion  of  idolaters  and  sav- 
ages ?  Then  let  them  know,  that  life  is  passing  away  ;  and  that, 
in  their  state  of  nature,  there  is  a  load  of  guilt  unexpiated,  of  pol- 
lution unremoved — that  there  is  but  one  specific  for  this  disease 
all  over  the  globe,  and  we  invite  them  now  to  the  Spirit  who  re- 
news and  to  the  Saviour  who  died  for  them.  He  is  set  forth  a 
propitiation  for  all  sin,  and  God  through  Him  beseeches  them  to 
be  reconciled.  Let  them  persist,  in  contempt  and  unconcern  no 
longer — for  there  is  an  event  that  will  soon  and  surely  overtake 
us ;  and  which,  if  it  find  us  unprepared,  will  excite,  not  the  won- 
der of  curiosity,  but  the  amazement  of  terror.  Death  is  at  our 
door ;  and  let  us  not  despise  the  Saviour  who  came  to  destroy 
him — lest  when  we  hear  His  approaching  footsteps,  and  receive 
His  last  and  awful  summons,  we  grow  pale  and  tremble  and 
perish. 


THE 


INFLUENCE  OF  PAROCHIAL  ASSOCIATIONS 


MORAL  AND  SPIRITUAL  GOOD  OF  MANKIND. 


THE    INFLUENCE 

OF 

PAROCHIAL   ASSOCIATIONS 

FOR    THE 

MORAL   AND   SPIRITUAL   GOOD   OF   MANKIND.* 

ARGUMENT, 

I .  The  Objection  stated. — 2.  The  Radical  Answer  to  it. — 3.  But  the  Objection  is  not 
true  in  point  of  fact. — 4.  A  former  act  of  charity  does  not  exempt  from  the  obligation  of 
a  new  act,  if  it  can  be  afforded. — 5.  Estimate  of  the  encroachment  made  by  a  Religious 
Society  upon  the  funds  of  the  country. — 6.  A  Subscriber  to  a  Parochial  Society  does 
not  give  less  to  the  Poor  on  that  account. — 7.  Evidence  for  the  truth  of  this  assertion. — 
8.  And  explanation  of  its  principle.  (1.)  The  ability  for  other  acts  of  charity  nearly  as 
entire  as  before. — 9.  (2.)  And  the  disposition  greater. — 10.  Poverty  is  better  kept  under 
by  a  preventive,  than  by  a  positive  treatment. — 11.  Exemplified  in  Scotland. — 12.  A 
Parochial  Society  has  a  strong  preventive  operation. — 13.  And  therefore  promotes  the 
secular  interests  of  the  Poor. — 14.  The  argument  carried  down  to  the  case  of  Penny 
Societies. — 15.  Difficulty  in  the  exposition  of  the  argument. — 16.  The  effects  of  a  chari- 
table endowment  in  a  Parish  pernicious  to  the  Poor. — 17.  By  inducing  a  dependence 
upon  it. — 18.  And  stripping  them  of  their  industrious  habits. — 19.  The  effects  of  a  Paro- 
chial Association,  such  as  we  plead  for,  are  in  an  opposite  direction  to  those  of  a  charita- 
ble endowment. — 20.  And  it  stands  completely  free  of  all  the  objections  to  which  a  tax 
is  liable. — 21.  Such  an  Association  gives  dignity  to  the  Poor. — 22.  And  a  delicate  reluc- 
tance to  pauperism. — 23.  The  shame  of  pauperism  is  the  best  defence  against  it. — 24. 
How  a  Bible  Association  augments  this  feeling. — 25.  By  dignifying  the  Poor. — 26.  And 
adding  to  the  Influence  of  Bible  Principles. — 27.  Exemplified  in  the  humblest  situation. 
— 28.  The  progress  of  these  Associations  in  the  country. — 29.  Compared  with  other  As- 
sociations for  the  relief  of  temporal  necessities. — 30.  The  more  salutary  influence  of 
Parochial  Associations. — 31.  And  how  they  counteract  the  pernicious  influence  of  other 
charities. — 32.  It  is  best  to  confide  the  secular  relief  of  the  Poor  to  individual  benevo- 
lence.— 33.  And  a  Parochial  Association  both  augments  and  enlightens  this  principle. 


1.  Without  entering  into  the  positive  claims  of  the  Bible  So- 
ciety, or  of  any  similar  Association,  upon  the  generosity  of  the 
public.  I  shall  endeavor  to  do  away  an  objection  which  meets  us 

*  This  pamphlet  was  originally  published  in  1P14.  It  must  be  obvious  of  its  reason- 
ings that  they  apply  to  every  benevolent  Association  which  has  for  its  object  the  moral 
and  spiritual  well-being  of  our  fellow-men,  whether  at  home  or  abroad.  We  hope, 
therefore,  that  its  republication  will  not  be  deemed  unseasonable  at  the  present  moment, 
when  attempts  are  being  made  to  enlist  the  general  population  in  the  pecuniary  support 
•of  Four  Great  Schemes,  which  have  received  the  hign  sanction  of  the  General  Assembly 
of  the  Church  of  Scotland. 


PAROCHIAL    ASSOCIATIONS.  65 

at  the  very  outset  of  every  attempt  to  raise  a  subscription,  or  to 
found  an  institution  in  its  favor.  The  secular  necessities  of  the 
poor  are  brought  into  competition  with  it,  and  every  shilling  given 
to  such  an  Association  is  represented  as  an  encroachment  upon 
that  fund  which  was  before  allocated  to  the  relief  of  poverty. 

2.  Admitting  the  fact  stated  in  the  objection  to  be  true,  we  have 
an  answer  in  readiness  for  it.  If  the  Bible  Society  accomplish  its 
professed  object,  which  is,  to  make  those  who  were  before  ignorant 
of  the  Bible  better  acquainted  with  it,  then  the  advantage  given 
more  than  atones  for  the  loss  sustained.  We  stand  upon  the  high 
ground,  that  eternity  is  longer  than  time,  and  the  unfading  enjoy- 
ments of  the  one  a  boon  more  valuable  than  the  perishable  enjoy- 
ments of  the  other.  Money  is  sometimes  expended,  for  the  idle 
purpose  of  amusing  the  poor  by  the  gratuitous  exhibition  of  a 
spectacle  or  show.  It  is  a  far  wiser  distribution  of  the  money, 
when  it  is  transferred  from  this  object  to  the  higher  and  more  use- 
ful objects  of  feeding  those  among  them  who  are  hungry,  clothing 
those  among  them  who  are  naked,  and  paying  for  medicine,  or 
attendance,  to  those  among  them  who  are  sick.  We  make  bold 
to  say,  that  if  money  for  the  purpose  could  be  got  from  no  other 
quarter,  it  would  be  a  wiser  distribution  still  to  withdraw  it  from 
the  objects  last  mentioned,  to  the  supreme  object  of  paying  for  the 
knowledge  of  religion  to  those  among  them  who  are  ignorant ; 
and,  at  the  hazard  of  being  execrated  by  many,  we  do  not  hesitate 
to  affirm,  that  it  is  better  for  the  poor  to  be  worse  fed  and  worse 
clothed,  than  that  they  should  be  left  ignorant  of  those  Scriptures, 
which  are  able  to  make  them  wise  unto  salvation  through  the  faith 
that  is  in  Christ  Jesus. 

3.  But  the  statement  contained  in  the  objection  is  not  true.  It 
seems  to  go  upon  the  supposition,  that  the  fund  for  relieving  the 
temporal  wants  of  the  poor  is  the  only  fund  which  exists  in  the 
country;  and  that  when  any  new  object  of  benevolence  is  started, 
there  is  no  other  fund  to  which  we  can  repair  for  the  requisite  ex- 
penses. But  there  are  other  funds  in  the  country.  There  is  a 
prodigious  fund  for  the  maintenance  of  Government,  nor  do  we 
wish  that  fund  to  be  encroached  upon  by  a  single  farthing.  There 
is  a  fund,  out  of  which  the  people  of  the  land  are  provided  in  the 
necessaries  of  life;  and  before  we  incur  the  odium  of  trenching 
upon  necessaries,  let  us  first  inquire,  if  there  be  no  other  fund  in 
existence.  Go  then  to  all  who  are  elevated  above  the  class  of 
mere  laborers,  and  you  will  find  in  their  possession  a  fund,  out  of 
which  they  are  provided  with  what  are  commonly  called  the  su- 
perfluities of  life.  We  do  not  dispute  their  right  to  these  super- 
fluities, nor  do  we  deny  the  quantity  of  pleasure  which  lies  in 
the  enjoyment  of  them.  We  only  state  the  existence  of  such  a 
fund,  and  that  by  a  trifling  act  of  self-denial,  on  the  part  of  those 
who  possess  it,  we  could  obtain  all  that  we  are  pleading  for.  It 
is  a  little  hard  that  the  competition  should  be  struck  betwixt  the 

9 


66  M.    AM)    SPilHTUAL    INFLUENCE 

fund  of  a  Parochial  Association  for  the  moral  good  of  others,  and 
the  fund  for  relieving  the  temporal  wants  of  the  poor,  while  the 
far  larger  and  more  transferable  fund  for  superfluities  is  left  out 
of  consideration  entirely,  and  suffered  to  remain  an  untouched 
and  unimpaired  quantity.  In  this  way  the  odium  of  hostility  to 
the  poor  is  fastened  upon  those  who  are  laboring  for  their  most 
substantial  interests,  while  a  set  of  men  who  neglect  the  immor- 
tality of  the  poor,  and  would  leave  their  souls  to  perish,  are  suf- 
fered to  sheer  off  with  the  credit  of  all  the  finer  sympathies  of  our 
nature. 

4.  To  whom  much  is  given,  of  them  much  will  be  required. 
Whatever  be  your  former  liberalities  in  another  direction,  when 
a  new  and  likely  direction  of  benevolence  is  pointed  out,  the  ques- 
tion still  comes  back  upon  you,  What  have  you  to  spare?  If  there 
be  a  remainder  left,  it  is  by  the  extent  of  this  remainder  that  you 
will  be  judged ;  and  it  is  not  right  to  set  the  claims  of  the  Paro- 
chial Association  against  the  secular  necessities  of  the  poor,  while 
means  so  ample  are  left,  that  the  true  way  of  instituting  the  com- 
petition is,  to  set  these  claims  against  some  personal  gratification 
which  it  is  in  your  power  to  abandon.  Have  a  care,  lest,  with 
the  language  of  philanthropy  in  your  mouth,  you  shall  be  found 
guilty  of  the  crudest  indifference  to  the  true  welfare  of  the  spe- 
cies, and  lest  the  discerner  of  your  heart  shall  perceive  how  it 
prefers  some  sordid  indulgence  of  its  own  to  the  dearest  interests 
of  those  around  you. 

5.  But  let  me  not  put  to  hazard  the  prosperity  of  our  cause,  by 
resting  it  on  a  standard  of  charity  far  too  elevated  for  the  general 
practice  of  the  times.  Let  us  now  drop  our  abstract  reasoning 
upon  the  respective  funds,  and  come  to  an  actual  specification  of 
their  quantities.  The  truth  is,  that  to  take  one  example,  the  fund 
for  the  Bible  Society  is  so  very  small,  that  it  is  not  entitled  to 
make  its  appearance  in  any  abstract  argument  whatever ;  and 
were  it  not  to  do  away  even  the  shadow  of  an  objection,  we  would 
have  been  ashamed  to  have  thrown  the  argument  into  the  lan- 
guage of  general  discussion.  What  shall  we  think  of  the  objec- 
tion when  told,  that  the  whole  yearly  revenue  of  the  Bible  Society, 
as  derived  from  the  contributions  of  those  who  support  it,  does 
not  amount  to  a  half  penny  per  month  from  each  householder  in 
Britain  and  Ireland  ?  Can  this  be  considered  as  a  serious  inva- 
sion upon  any  one  fund  allotted  to  other  destinations  ;  and  shall 
the  most  splendid  and  promising  enterprise  that  ever  benevolence 
was  engaged  in  be  arrested  upon  an  objection  so  fanciful  ?  We 
do  not  want  to  oppress  any  individual  by  the  extravagance  of  our 
demands.  It  is  not  in  great  sums,  but  in  the  combination  of  littles, 
that  our  strength  lies.  It  is  the  power  of  combination  which  re- 
solves the  mystery.  Great  has  been  the  progress  and  activity  of 
the  Bible  Society  since  its  first  institution.  All  we  want  is,  that 
this  rate  of  activity  in  favor  of  all  good  associations,  be  kept  up 


OF    PAROCHIAL    ASSOCIATIONS.  67 

and  extended.  The  above  statement  will  convince  the  reader 
that  there  is  ample  room  for  the  extension.*  The  whole  fund  for 
the  secular  wants  of  the  poor  may  be  left  untouched,  and,  as  to 
the  fund  for  luxuries,  the'  revenue  of  our  Christian  Societies  may- 
be augmented  a  hundred-fold  before  this  fund  is  sensibly  en- 
croached upon.  The  veriest  crumbs  and  sweepings  of  extrav- 
agance would  suffice  us ;  and  it  will  be  long,  and  very  long,  be- 
fore any  invasion  of  ours  upon  this  fund  shall  give  rise  to  any 
perceivable  abridgment  of  luxury,  or  have  the  weight  of  a  straw 
upon  the  general  style  and  establishment  of  families. 

6.  But  there  is  still  another  way  of  meeting  the  objection.  Let 
us  come  immediately  to  a  question  upon  the  point  of  fact.  Does 
a  man,  on  becoming  a  subscriber  to  a  Parochial  Association,  give 
less  to  the  secular  wants  of  the  poor  than  he  did  formerly?  It  is 
true,  there  is  a  difficulty  in  the  way  of  obtaining  an  answer  to 
this  question.  He  who  knows  best  what  answer  to  give,  will  be 
the  last  to  proclaim  it.  In  as  far  as  the  subscribers  themselves 
are  concerned,  we  must  leave  the  answer  to  their  own  experience, 
and  sure  we  are  that  that  experience  will  not  be  against  us.  But 
it  is  not  from  this  quarter  that  we  can  expect  to  obtain  the  wished- 
for  information.  The  benevolence  of  an  individual  does  not  stand 
out  to  the  eye  of  the  public.  The  knowledge  of  its  operations  is 
confined  to  the  little  neighborhood  within  which  it  expatiates.  It 
is  often  kept  from  the  poor  themselves;  and  then  the  information 
we  are  in  quest  of  is  shut  up  with  the  giver  in  the  silent  con- 
sciousness of  his  own  bosom,  and  with  God  in  the  book  of  His 
remembrance. 

7.  But  much  good  has  been  done  of  late  years  by  the  combined 
exertions  of  individuals ;  and  benevolence,  when  operating  in  this 
way,  is  necessarily  exposed  to  public  observation.  Subscriptions 
have  been  started  for  almost  every  one  object  which  benevolence 
can  devise,  and  the  published  lists  may  furnish  us  with  data  for  a 
partial  solution  of  the  proposed  question.  In  point  of  fact,  then, 
those  who  subscribe  for  a  religious  object,  subscribe  with  the 
greatest  readiness  and  liberality  for  the  relief  of  human  afflic- 
tion, under  all  the  various  forms  in  which  it  pleads  for  sympathy. 
This  is  quite  notorious.  The  human  mind,  by  singling  out  the 
eternity  of  others  as  the  main  object  of  its  benevolence,  does  not 
withdraw  itself  from  the  care  of  sustaining  them  on  the  way  which 
leads  to  eternity.  It  exerts  an  act  of  preference,  but  not  an  act 
of  exclusion.  A  friend  of  mine  has  been  indebted  to  an  active 
and  beneficent  patron  for  a  lucrative  situation  in  a  distant  country. 
But  he  wants  money  to  pay  his  travelling  expenses.  I  commit 
every  reader  to  his  own  experience  of  human  nature,  when  I  rest 
with  him  the  assertion,  that  if  real  kindness  lay  at  the  bottom  of 
this  act  of  patronage,  the  patron  himself  is  the  likeliest  quarter 

*  Could  we  obtain  a  penny  a-week,  not  from  each  individual,  but  from  each  family, 
in  Scotland — this  alone  would  yield  a  hundred  thousand  pounds  in  the  year. 


68  MORAL    AND    SPIRITUAL    INFLUENCE 

from  which  the  assistance  will  come.  The  man  who  signalizes 
himself  by  his  religious  charities,  is  not  the  last  but  the  first  man 
to  whom  I  would  apply  in  behalf  of  the  sick  and  the  destitute. 
The  two  principles  are  not  inconsistent.  They  give  support  and 
nourishment  to  each  other,  or,  rather,  they  are  exertions  of  the 
same  principle.  This  will  appear  in  full  display  on  the  day  of 
judgment ;  and  even  in  this  dark  and  undiscerning  world,  enough 
of  evidence  is  before  us  upon  which  the  benevolence  of  the  Chris- 
tian stands  nobly  vindicated,  and  from  which  it  may  be  shown, 
that,  while  its  chief  care  is  for  the  immortality  of  others,  it  casts 
a  wide  and  a  wakeful  eye  over  all  the  necessities  and  sufferings  of 
the  species. 

8.  Nor  have  we  far  to  look  for  the  explanation.  The  two  ele- 
ments which  combine  to  form  an  act  of  charity,  are  the  ability 
and  the  disposition  ;  and  the  question  simply  resolves  itself  into 
this,  "  In  how  far  these  elements  will  survive  a  donation  to  a 
Parochial  Association  for  religious  objects,  so  as  to  leave  the  other 
charities  unimpaired  by  it  ?"  It  is  certainly  conceivable,  that  an 
individual  may  give  every  spare  farthing  of  his  income  to  this  in- 
stitution. In  this  case,  there  is  a  total  extinction  of  the  first  ele- 
ment. But,  in  point  of  fact,  this  is  never  done,  or  done  so  rarely 
as  not  to  be  admited  into  any  general  argument.  With  by  far  the 
greater  number  of  subscribers,  the  ability  is  not  sensibly  en- 
croached upon.  There  is  no  visible  retrenchment  in  the  super- 
fluities of  life.  A  very  slight  and  partial  change  in  the  direction 
of  that  fund  which  is  familiarly  known  by  the  name  of  pocket- 
money,  can,  generally  speaking,  provide  for  the  whole  amount  of 
the  donation  in  question.  There  are  a  thousand  floating  and  in- 
cidental expenses,  which  can  be  given  up  without  almost  the  feel- 
ing of  a  sacrifice ;  and  the  diversion  of  a  few  of  them  to  the  char- 
ity we  are  pleading  for,  leaves  the  ability  of  the  giver  to  all  sense 
as  entire  as  before. 

9.  But  the  second  element  is  subject  to  other  laws,  and  the 
formal  calculations  of  arithmetic  do  not  apply  to  it.  The  disposi- 
tion is  not  like  the  ability,  a  given  quantity  which  suffers  an  ab- 
straction by  every  new  exercise.  The  effect  of  a  donation  upon 
the  purse  of  the  giver,  is  not  the  same  with  the  moral  influence 
of  that  donation  upon  his  heart.  Yet  the  two  are  assimilated  by 
our  antagonists;  and  the  pedantry  of  computation  carries  them  to 
results  which  are  in  the  face  of  all  experience.  It  is  not  so  easy 
to  awaken  the  benevolent  principle  out  of  its  sleep,  as,  when  once 
awakened  in  behalf  of  one  object,  to  excite  and  to  interest  it  in 
behalf  of  another.  When  the  bar  of  selfishness  is  broken  down, 
and  the  flood-gates  of  the  heart  are  once  opened,  the  stream  of 
beneficence  can  be  turned  into  a  thousand  directions.  It  is  true, 
that  there  can  be  no  beneficence  without  wealth,  as  there  can  be 

wio  stream  without  water.     It  is  conceivable,  that  the  opening  of 
the  flood-gates  may  give  rise  to  no  flow,  as  the  opening  of  the 


OF    PAROCHIAL    ASSOCIATIONS.  69 

poor  man's  heart  to  the  distresses  of  those  around  him  may  give 
rise  to  no  act  of  almsgiving.  But  we  have  already  proved  the 
abundance  of  wealth  ;  (N.  B.  see  8.)  It  is  the  selfishness  of  the 
inaccessible  heart  which  forms  the  mighty  barrier ;  and  if  this 
could  be  done  away,  a  thousand  fertilizing  streams  would  issue 
from  it.  Now,  this  is  what  our  Parochial  Associations,  in  many 
instances,  have  accomplished.  They  have  unlocked  the  avenue 
to  many  a  heart,  which  was  before  inaccessible.  They  have 
come  upon  them  with  all  the  energy  of  a  popular  and  prevailing 
impulse.  They  have  created  in  them  a  new  taste  and  a  new 
principle.  They  have  opened  the  fountain,  and  we  are  sure  that, 
in  every  district  of  the  land  where  a  Parochial  Association  exists, 
the  general  principle  of  benevolence  is  more  active  and  more  ex- 
panding than  ever. 

10.  And  after  all,  what  is  the  best  method  of  providing  for  the 
secular  necessities  of  the  poor  ?  Is  it  by  laboring  to  meet  the 
necessity  after  it  has  occurred,  or  by  laboring  to  establish  a  prin- 
ciple and  a  habit  which  would  go  far  to  prevent  its  existence?  If 
you  wish  to  get  rid  of  a  noxious  stream,  you  may  first  try  to  in- 
tercept it  by  throwing  across  a  barrier :  but,  in  this  way,  you  only 
spread  the  pestilential  water  over  a  greater  extent  of  ground,  and 
when  the  basin  is  filled,  a  stream  as  copious  as  before  is  formed 
out  of  its  overflow.  The  most  effectual  method,  were  it  possible 
to  carry  it  into  accomplishment,  would  be,  to  dry  up  the  source. 
The  parallel  in  a  great  measure  holds.  If  you  wish  to  extinguish 
poverty,  combat  with  it  in  its  first  elements.  If  you  confine  your 
beneficence  to  the  relief  of  actual  poverty,  you  do  nothing.  Dry 
up,  if  possible,  the  spring  of  poverty,  for  every  attempt  to  inter- 
cept the  running  stream  has  totally  failed.  The  education  and 
the  religious  principle  of  Scotland  have  not  annihilated  pauperism, 
but  they  have  restrained  it  to  a  degree  that  is  almost  incredible  to 
our  neighbors  of  the  south :  they  keep  down  the  mischief  in  its 
principle  ;  they  impart  a  sobriety  and  a  right  sentiment  of  inde- 
pendence to  the  character  of  our  peasantry ;  they  operate  as  a 
check  upon  profligacy  and  idleness.  The  maintenance  of  parish 
schools  is  a  burden  upon  the  landed  property  of  Scotland,  but  it 
is  a  cheap  defence  against  the  poor  rates,  a  burden  far  heavier, 
and  which  is  aggravating  perpetually.  The  writer  of  this  paper 
knows  of  a  parish  in  Fife,  the  average  maintenance  of  whose  poor 
is  defrayed  by  twenty-four  pounds  sterling  a  year ;  and  of  a 
parish,  of  the  same  population,  in  Somersetshire,  where  the  an- 
nual assessments  come  to  thirteen  hundred  pounds  sterling.  The 
preventive  regimen  of  the  one  country  does  more  than  the  posi- 
tive applications  of  the  other.  In  England,  they  have  suffered 
poverty  to  rise  to  all  the  virulence  of  a  formed  and  obstinate  dis- 
ease. But  they  may  as  well  think  of  arresting  the  destructive 
progress  of  a  torrent  by  throwing  across  an  embankment,  as  think 


70  MORAL    AND    SPIRITUAL    INFLUENCE 

that  the  mere  positive  administration  of  relief  will  put  a  stop  to  the 
accumulating  mischiefs  of  poverty. 

11.  The  exemption  of  Scotland  from  the  miseries  of  pauperism, 
is  due  to  the  education  which  their  people  receive  at  schools,  and 
to  the  Bible  which  their  scholarship  gives  them  access  to.  The 
man  who  subscribes  to  the  divine  authority  of  this  simple  saying, 
*\  If  any  would  not  work,  neither  should  he  eat,"  possesses,  in  the 
good  treasure  of  his  own  heart,  a  far  more  effectual  security 
against  the  hardships  of  indigence,  than  the  man  who  is  trained, 
by  the  legal  provisions  of  his  country,  to  sit  in  slothful  dependence 
upon  the  liberalities  of  those  around  him.  It  is  easy  to  be  eloquent 
in  the  praise  of  those  liberalities ;  but  the  truth  is,  that  they  may 
be  carried  to  the  mischievous  extent  of  forming  a  depraved  and 
beggarly  population.  The  hungry  expectations  of  the  poor  will 
ever  keep  pace  with  the  assessments  of  the  wealthy  ;  and  their 
eye  will  be  averted  from  the  exertion  of  their  own  industry,  as  the 
only  right  source  of  comfort  and  independence.  It  is  quite  in 
vain  to  think  that  positive  relief  will  ever  do  away  the  wretched- 
ness of  poverty.  Carry  the  relief  beyond  a  certain  limit,  and  you 
foster  the  diseased  principle  which  gives  birth  to  poverty.  On 
this  subject  the  people  of  England  felt  themselves  of  late  to  be  in 
a  state  of  almost  inextricable  helplessness  ;  and  they  were  not 
without  their  fears  of  some  mighty  convulsion,  to  come  upon  them 
with  all  the  energy  of  a  tempest,  before  this  devouring  mischief 
could  be  swept  away  from  the  face  of  their  community. 

12.  The  best  thing  to  avert  this  calamity  from  England  is  the 
education  of  their  peasantry ;  and  this  is  a  cause  to  which  the 
Religious  Societies  are  contributing  their  full  share  of  influence. 
A  zeal  for  the  circulation  of  the  Bible  is  inseparable  from  a  zeal 
for  extending  among  the  people  the  capacity  of  reading  it ;  and  it 
is  not  to  be  conceived,  that  the  very  same  individual  can  be  eager 
for  the  introduction  of  this  volume  into  our  cottages,  and  sit  in- 
active under  the  galling  reflection,  that  it  is  still  a  sealed  book  to 
many  thousands  of  the  occupiers.  Accordingly  we  find,  that  the 
two  concerns  are  keeping  pace  with  one  another.  The  Bible  So- 
ciety does  not  overstep  the  simplicity  of  its  assigned  object ;  but 
the  members  of  that  Society  receive  an  impulse  from  the  cause, 
which  carries  them  to  promote  the  education  of  the  poor,  either 
by  their  individual  exertions,  or  by  giving  their  support  to  the 
Society  for  Schools.  The  two  Societies  move  in  concert.  Each 
contributes  an  essential  element  in  the  business  of  enlightening 
the  people.     This  one  furnishes  the  book  of  knowledge,  and   the 

>ther  furnishes  the  key  to  it.  This  division  of  employment,  as  in 
every  other  instance,  facilitates  the  work,  and  renders  it  more 
effective.  But  it  does  not  hinder  the  same  individual  from  giving 
his  countenance  to  both ;  and  sure  I  am,  that  the  man  whose  feel- 
ings have  been  already  warmed,  and  whose  purse  has  been  already 
drawn  in  behalf  of  the  one,  is  a  likelier  subject  for  an  application 


OP    PAROCHIAL    ASSOCIATIONS.  71 

in  behalf  of  the  other,  than  he  whose  money  is  still  untouched,  but 
whose  heart  is  untouched  also. 

13.  It  will  be  seen,  then,  that  our  Parochial  Societies  are  not 
barely  defensible,  but  may  be  plead  for  upon  that  ground  on  which 
their  enemies  have  raised  an  opposition  to  them.  Their  immedi- 
ate object  is,  neither  to  feed  the  hungry  nor  to  clothe  the  naked 
but,  in  every  country  under  the  benefit  of  their  exertions,  there 
will  be  less  hunger  to  feed,  and  less  nakedness  to  clothe.  They 
do  not  cure  actual  poverty,  but  they  anticipate  eventual  poverty. 
They  aim  their  decisive  thrust  at  the  heart  and  principle  of  the 
mischief;  and,  instead  of  suffering  it  to  form  into  the  obstinacy  of 
an  inextirpable  disease,  they  smother  and  destroy  it  in  the  infancy 
of  its  first  elements.  The  love  which  worketh  no  ill  to  his  neigh- 
bor, will  not  suffer  the  true  Christian  to  live  in  idleness  upon 
another's  bounty  ;  and  he  will  do  as  Paul  did  before  him  ;  he  will 
labor  with  his  hands  rather  than  be  burdensome.  Could  we  reform 
the  improvident  habits  of  the  people,  and  pour  the  healthful  infu- 
sion of  Scripture  principle  into  their  hearts,  it  would  reduce  the 
existing  poverty  of  the  land  to  a  very  humble  fraction  of  its  pres- 
ent extent.  We  make  bold  to  say,  that,  in  ordinary  times,  there 
is  not  one-tenth  of  the  pauperism  of  England  due  to  unavoidable 
misfortune.  It  has  grown  out  of  a  vicious  and  impolitic  system  ; 
and  the  millions  which  are  raised  every  year  have  only  served  to 
nourish  and  extend  it.  Now,  Religious  Education  is  a  prime 
agent  in  the  work  of  counteracting  this  disorder.  Its  mode  of 
proceeding  carries  in  it  all  the  cheapness  and  all  the  superior 
efficacy  of  a  preventive  operation.  With  a  revenue  not  equal  to 
the  poor  rates  of  many  a  county,  it  is  doing  more  even  for  the 
secular  interests  of  the  poor  than  all  the  charities  of  England 
united ;  and  while  a  puling  and  injudicious  sympathy  is  pouring 
out  its  complaints  against  the  Societies  which  support  this  educa- 
tion, it  is  sowing  the  seeds  of  character  and  independence,  and 
rearing,  for  future  days,  the  spectacle  of  a  thriving,  substantial, 
and  well-conditioned  peasantry. 

14.  I  have  hitherto  been  supposing,  that  the  rich  only  are  the 
givers,  but  I  now  call  on  the  poor  to  be  sharers  in  this  work  of 
charity.  It  is  true,  that  of  these  poor  there  are  some  who  depend 
on  charity  for  their  subsistence,  and  these  have  no  right  to  give 
what  they  receive  from  others.  And  there  are  some  who  have 
not  arrived  at  this  state  of  dependence,  but  are  on  the  very  verge 
of  it.  Let  us  keep  back  no  part  of  the  truth  from  them.  "  If 
any  provide  not  for  his  own,  and  especially  for  those  of  his  own 
house,  he  hath  denied  the  faith,  and  is  worse  than  an  infidel." 
There  are  others,  again,  and  these  I  apprehend  form  by  far  the 
most  numerous  class  of  society,  who  can  maintain  themselves  in 
humble  but  honest  independence,  who  can  spare  a  little,  and  not 
feel  it  ;  who  can  do  what  Paul  advises,*  lay  aside  their  penny  a- 

*  1  Corinthians  xvi.  2. 


72  MORAL    AND    SPIRITUAL    INFLUENCE 

week  as  God  hath  prospered  them  ;  who  can  share  that  blessed- 
ness which  the  Saviour  spoke  of  when  he  said,  It  is  more  blessed 
to  give  than  to  receive ;  who  though  they  cannot  equal  their 
richer  neighbors  in  the  amount  of  their  donation,  can  bestow  their 
something,  and  can,  at  all  events,  carry  in  their  bosom  a  heart  as 
warm  to  the  cause,  and  call  down  as  precious  a  blessing  from  the 
God  who  witnesses  it.  A  Parochial  Society  is  opposed,  on  the 
ground  of  its  diverting  a  portion  of  relief  from  the  secular  neces- 
sities of  the  poor,  even  when  the  rich  only  are  called  upon  to 
support  it.  When  the  application  for  support  is  brought  down  to 
the  poor  themselves,  and,  instead  of  the  recipients,  it  is  proposed 
to  make  them  the  dispensers  of  charity,  we  may  lay  our  account 
with  the  opposition  being  still  more  clamorous.  We  undertake  to 
prove,  that  this  opposition  is  founded  on  a  fallacy,  and  that,  by  in- 
teresting the  great  mass  of  a  parish  in  the  objects  of  religious  be- 
nevolence, and  assembling  them  into  a  penny  association  for  their 
support,  you  raise  a  defence  against  the  extension  of  pauperism. 

15.  We  feel  a  difficulty  in  this  undertaking,  not  from  any  un- 
certainty which  hangs  over  the  principle,  but  from  the  difficulty 
of  bringing  forward  a  plain  and  popular  exhibition  of  it.  How- 
ever familiar  the  principle  may  be  to  a  student  of  political  science, 
it  carries  in  it  an  air  of  paradox  to  the  multitude,  and  it  were 
well  if  this  air  of  paradox  were  the  only  obstacle  to  its  reception. 
But  to  the  children  of  poesy  and  fine  sentiment,  the  principle  in 
question  carries  in  it  an  air  of  barbarity  also,  and  all  the  rigor  of 
a  pure  and  impregnable  argument  has  not  been  able  to  protect 
the  conclusions  of  Malthus  from  their  clamorous  indignation. 
There  is  a  kind  of  hurrying  sensibility  about  them,  which  allows 
neither  time  nor  temper  for  listening  to  any  calculation  on  the 
subject ;  and  there  is  not  a  more  striking  vanity  under  the  sun, 
than  that  the  substantial  interests  of  the  poor  have  suffered  less 
from  the  maglignant  and  the  unfeeling,  than  from  those  who 
give  without  wisdom,  and  who  feel  without  consideration  : 

Blessed  is  he  that  wisely  doth 
The  poor  man's  case  consider. 

16.  Let  me  put  the  case  of  two  parishes,  in  the  one  of  which 
there  is  a  known  and  public  endowment,  out  of  which  an  annual 
sum  is  furnished  for  the  maintenance  of  the  poor ;  and  that  in  the 
other  there  is  no  such  endowment.  At  the  outset,  the  poor  of  the 
first  parish  may  be  kept  in  greater  comfort  than  the  poor  of  the 
second  ;  but  it  is  the  lesson  of  all  experience,  that  no  annual  sum, 
however  great,  will  be  able  to  keep  them  permanently  in  greatei 
comfort.  The  certain  effect  of  an  established  provision  for  the 
poor  is,  a  relaxation  of  their  economical  habits,  and  an  increased 
number  of  improvident  marriages.  When  their  claim  to  a  pro- 
vision is  known,  that  claim  is  always  counted  upon,  and  it  were 


OF    PAROCHIAL    ASSOCIATIONS.  73 

well,  if  to  flatter  their  natural  indolence,  they  did  not  carry  the 
calculation  beyond  the  actual  benefit  they  can  ever  receive.  But 
this  is  what  they  always  do.  When  a  public  charity  is  known 
and  counted  upon,  the  relaxation  of  frugal  and  providential  habits 
is  carried  to  such  an  extent,  as  not  only  to  absorb  the  whole  pro- 
duce of  the  charity,  but  to  leave  new  wants  unprovided  for,  and 
the  effect  of  the  benevolent  institution  is  just  to  create  a  population 
more  wretched  and  more  clamorous  than  ever. 

17.  In  the  second  parish,  the  economical  habits  of  the  people 
are  kept  unimpared,  and  just  because  their  economy  is  forced  to 
take  a  higher  aim,  and  to  persevere  in  it.  The  aim  of  the  first 
people  is,  to  provide  for  themselves  a  part  of  their  maintenance ; 
the  aim  of  the  second  people  is  to  provide  for  themselves  their 
whole  maintenance.  We  do  not  deny  that  even  among  the  latter 
we  will  meet  with  distress  and  poverty,  just  such  distress  and 
such  poverty  as  are  to  be  found  in  the  average  of  Scottish  par- 
ishes. This  finds  its  alleviation  in  private  benevolence.  To  allevi- 
ate poverty  is  all  that  can  be  done  for  it :  to  extinguish  it  we  fear 
is  hopeless.  Sure  we  are,  that  the  known  and  regular  provisions 
of  England  will  never  extinguish  it,  and  that,  in  respect  of  the 
poor  themselves,  the  second  parish  is  under  a  better  system  than 
the  first.  The  poor  rates  are  liable  to  many  exceptions,  but  there 
is  none  of  them  more  decisive  with  him  who  cares  for  the  eternity 
of  the  poor,  than  the  temptation  they  hold  out  to  positive  guilt, 
the  guilt  of  not  working  with  their  own  hands,  and  so  becoming 
burdensome  to  others.* 

18.  Let  us  conceive  a  political  change  in  the  circumstances  of 
the  country,  and  that  the  public  charity  of  the  first  parish  fell 
among  the  ruin  of  other  institutions.  Then  its  malignant  influ- 
ence would  be  felt  in  all  its  extent ;  and  it  would  be  seen,  that  it, 
in  fact,  had  impoverished  those  whom  it  professed  to  sustain,  that 
it  had  stript  them  of  a  possession  far  more  valuable  than  all  it  had 
ever  given  ;  that  it  had  stript  them  of  industrious  habits,  and  left 
those  whom  its  influence  never  reached  wealthier  in  the  resources 
of  their  own  superior  industry,  than  the  artificial  provisions  of  an 
unwise  and  meddling  benevolence  could  ever  make  them. 

19.  The  comparison  betwixt  these  two  parishes  paves  the  way 
for  another  comparison.  Let  me  now  put  the  case  of  a  third 
parish,  where  a  Parochial  Association  is  instituted,  and  where  the 
simple  regulation  of  a  penny  a-week  throws  it  open  to  the  bulk 
of  the  people.  What  effect  has  this  upon  their  economical  habits  1 
It  just  throws  them  at  a  greater  distance  from  the  thriftlessness 
which  prevails  in  the  first  parish,  and  leads  them  to  strike  a 
higher  aim  in  the  way  of  economy  than  the  people  of  the  second. 
The  general  aim  of  economy,  in  humble  life,  is  to  keep  even  with 
the  world  ;  but  it  is  known  to  every  man  at  all  familiar  with  that 
class  of  society,  that  the  great  majority  may  strike  their  aim  a  little 

*  Acts  xx.  35.     1  Timothy  v.  8. 

10 


74  MORAL    AND    SPIRITUAL    INFLUENCE 

higher,  and,  in  point  of  fact,  have  it  in  their  power  to  redeem  an  an- 
nual sum  from  the  mere  squanderings  of  mismanagement  and  care- 
lessness. The  unwise  provisions  in  the  first  parish,  have  had  the 
effect  of  sinking  the  income  of  the  poor  below  their  habits  of  expend- 
iture, and  they  are  brought,  permanently  and  irrecoverably  brought, 
into  a  state  of  pauperism.  In  the  second  parish,  the  income,  gene- 
rally speaking,  is  even  with  the  habits  of  expenditure.  In  the  third 
the  income  is  above  the  habits  of  expenditure,  and  above  it  by  the 
annual  sum  contributed  to  the  Parochial  Society.  The  circumstance 
of  being  members  to  such  a  Society  throws  them  at  a  greater  dis- 
tance from  pauperism  than  if  they  had  not  been  members  of  it. 

20.  The  effect  on  the  economical  habits  of  the  people  would 
just  be  the  same  in  whatever  way  the  stated  annual  sum  was  ob- 
tained from  them,  even  though  a  compulsory  tax  were  the  instru- 
ment of  raising  it.*  This  assimilation  of  our  plan  to  a  tax,  may 
give  rise  to  a  world  of  impetuous  declamation ;  but  let  it  ever  be 
remembered,  that  the  institution  of  a  Parochial  Society  gives  you 
the  whole  benefit  of  such  a  tax,  without  its  odiousness.  It  brings 
up  their  economy  to  a  higher  pitch ;  but  it  does  so,  not  in  the  way 
which  they  resist,  but  in  the  way  which  they  choose.  The  single 
circumstance  of  its  being  a  voluntary  act,  forms  the  defence  and 
the  answer  to  all  the  clamors  of  an  affected  sympathy.  You  take 
from  the  poor.  No!  they  give. —  You  take  beyond  their  ability. 
Of  this  they  are  the  best  judges. — You  abridge  their  comforts ! 
]\To  !  there  is  a  comfort  in  the  exercise  of  charity  :  there  is  a  com- 
fort in  the  act  of  lending  a  hand  to  a  noble  enterprise;  there  is  a 
comfort  in  the  contemplation  of  its  progress  ;  there  is  a  comfort  in 
rendering  a  service  to  a  friend,  and  when  that  friend  is  the  Sav- 
iour, and  that  service  the  circulation  of  the  message  he  left  behind 
him,  it  is  a  comfort  which  many  of  the  poor  are  ambitious  to  share 
in.  Leave  them  to  judge  of  their  comfort ;  and  if,  in  point  of  fact, 
they  do  give  their  penny  a- week  to  a  Parochial  Society,  it  just 
speaks  them  to  have  more  comfort  in  this  way  of  spending  it,  than 
in  any  other  which  occurs  to  them. 

21.  Perhaps  it  does  not  occur  to  those  friends  of  the  poor,  while 
they  are  sitting  in  judgment  on  their  circumstances  and  feelings, 
how  unjustly  and  how  unworthily  they  think  of  them.  They  do 
not  conceive  how  truth  and  benevolence  can  be  at  all  objects 
to  them  ;  and  suppose,  that  after  they  have  got  the  meat  to  feed, 
the  house  to  shelter,  the  raiment  to  cover  them,  there  is  nothing 
else  that  they  will  bestow  a  penny  upon.  They  may  not  be  able 
to  express  their  feelings  on  a  suspicion  so  ungenerous,  but  I  shall 
do  it  for  them:  ''We  have  souls  as  well  as  you,  and  precious  to 
our  hearts  is  the  Saviour  who  died  for  them.  It  is  true,  we  have 
our  distresses  ;  but  these  have  bound  us  more  firmly  to  our  Bibles, 

*  I  must  here  suppose  the  sum  to  be  a  stated  one,  and  a  feeling  of  security  on  the  part 
of  the  people,  that  the  tax  shall  not  be  subject  to  variation,  at  the  caprice  of  an  arbitrary 
government. 


OF    PAROCHIAL    ASSOCIATIONS.  75 

and  it  is  the  desire  of  our  hearts,  that  a  gift  so  precious  should  be 
sent  to  the  poor  of  other  countries.  The  word  of  God  is  our  hope 
and  our  rejoicing ;  we  desire  that  it  may  be  theirs  also,  that  the 
wandering  savage  may  know  it  and  be  glad,  and  the  poor  negro, 
under  the  lash  of  his  master,  may  be  told  of  a  Master  in  heaven, 
who  is  full  of  pity  and  full  of  kindness.  Do  you  think  that  sym- 
pathy for  such  as  these  is  your  peculiar  attribute?  Know,  that 
our  hearts  are  made  of  the  same  materials  with  your  own ;  that 
we  can  feel  as  well  as  you  ;  and  out  of  the  earnings  of  a  hard  and 
an  honest  industry,  we  shall  give  an  offering  to  the  cause  ;  nor  shall 
we  cease  our  exertions  till  the  message  of  salvation  be  carried 
round  the  globe,  and  made  known  to  the  countless  millions  who 
live  in  guilt,  and  who  die  in  darkness." 

22.  And  here  it  is  obvious,  that  a  superior  habit  of  economy  is 
not  the  only  defence  which  a  Parochial  Society  raises  against 
pauperism.  The  smallness  of  the  sum  contributed  may  give  a  lit- 
tleness to  this  argument;  but  not,  let  it  be  remembered,  without 
giving  an  equal  littleness  to  the  objection  of  those  who  declaim 
against  the  institution,  on  the  ground  of  its  oppressiveness  to  the 
poor  contributors.  The  great  defence  which  such  a  Society 
establishes  against  pauperism,  is,  the  superior  tone  of  dignity  and 
independence  which  it  imparts  to  the  character  of  him  who  sup- 
ports it.  He  stands  on  the  high  ground  of  being  a  dispenser  of 
charity  ;  and  before  he  can  submit  to  become  a  recipient  of  charity, 
he  must  let  himself  farther  down  than  a  poor  man  in  ordinary  cir- 
cumstances. To  him  the  transition  will  be  more  violent ;  and 
the  value  of  this  principle  will  be  acknowledged  by  all  who  per- 
ceive that  it  is  reluctance  on  the  part  of  the  poor  man  to  become 
a  pauper,  which  forms  the  mighty  barrier  against  the  extension 
of  pauperism.  A  man,  by  becoming  the  member  of  a  benevolent 
association,  puts  himself  into  the  situation  of  a  giver.  He  stands 
at  a  greater  distance  than  before  from  the  situation  of  a  receiver. 
He  has  a  wider  interval  to  traverse  before  he  can  reach  this  point. 
He  will  feel  it  a  greater  degradation  ;  and  to  save  himself  from  it, 
he  will  put  forth  all  his  powers  of  frugality  and  exertion.  The 
idea  of  restraining  pauperism  by  external  administrations  seems 
now  to  be  generally  abandoned.  But  could  we  thus  enter  into  the 
hearts  of  the  poor,  we  would  get  in  at  the  root  of  the  mischief, 
and  by  fixing  there  a  habit  of  economy  and  independence,  more 
would  be  done  for  them,  than  by  all  the  liberalities  of  all  the  opu- 
lent. 

23.  In  those  districts  of  Scotland  where  poor  rates  are  un- 
known, the  descending  avenue  which  leads  to  pauperism  is  power- 
fully guarded  by  the  stigma  which  attaches  to  it.  Remove  this 
stigma,  and  our  cottagers,  now  rich  in  the  possession  of  content- 
ment and  industry,  would  resign  their  habits,  and  crowd  into  the 
avenue  by  thousands.  The  shame  of  descending,  is  the  powerful 
stimulus  which  urges  them  to  a  manful  contest  with  the  difficulties 


76  MORAL    AND    SPIRITUAL    INFLUENCE 

of  their  situation,  and  which  bears  them  through  in  all  the  pride  of 
honest  independence.  Talk  of  this  to  the  people  of  the  South, 
and  it  sounds  in  their  ears  like  an  Arcadian  story.  But  there  is 
not  a  clergyman  amongst  us  who  has  not  witnessed  the  operation 
of  the  principle  in  all  its  fineness,  and  in  all  its  moral  delicacy  ;  and 
surely  a  testimony  is  due  to  those  village  heroes  who  so  nobly 
struggle  with  the  difficulties  of  pauperism,  that  they  may  shun 
and  surmount  its  degradation. 

24.  A  Parochial  Association  gives  additional  vigor  and  buoy- 
ancy to  this  elevated  principle.  The  trifle  which  it  exacts  from 
its  contributor  is,  in  truth,  never  missed  by  him  ;  but  it  puts  him 
in  the  high  attitude  of  a  giver,  and  every  feeling  which  it  inspires 
is  on  the  side  of  independence  and  delicacy.  Go  over  each  of 
these  feelings  separately,  and  you  find  that  they  are  all  fitted  to 
fortify  his  dislike  at  the  shame  and  dependence  of  pauperism. 
There  is  a  consciousness  of  importance  which  unavoidably  at- 
taches to  the  share  he  has  taken  in  the  support  and  direction  of  a 
public  charity.  There  is  the  expanding  effect  of  the  information 
which  comes  to  him  through  the  medium  of  the  circulated  Re- 
ports, which  lays  before  him  the  mighty  progress  of  an  institution 
reaching  to  all  countries,  and  embracing  in  its  ample  grasp,  the 
men  of  all  latitudes  and  all  languages,  which  deeply  interests  him 
in  the  object,  and  perpetuates  his  desire  of  promoting  it.  A  man 
with  his  heart  so  occupied,  and  his  attention  so  directed,  is  not 
capable  of  a  voluntary  descent  to  pauperism.  He  has,  in  fact,  be- 
come a  more  cultivated  and  intellectual  being  than  formerly.  His 
mind  gathers  an  enlargement  from  the  wide  and  animating  con- 
templations which  are  set  before  him ;  and  we  appeal  to  the  re- 
flection of  every  reader,  if  such  a  man  will  descend  as  readily  to 
a  dependence  on  the  charity  of  others,  as  he  whose  mind  is  void 
of  information,  and  whose  feelings  are  void  of  dignity. 

25.  In  such  associations,  the  rich  and  the  poor  meet  together. 
They  share  in  one  object,  and  are  united  by  the  sympathy  of  one 
feeling,  and  of  one  interest.  We  have  not  to  look  far  into  human 
nature  to  be  convinced  of  the  happy  and  the  harmonizing  influ- 
ence which  this  must  have  upon  society ;  and  how,  in  the  glow 
of  one  common  cordiality,  all  asperity  and  discontent  must  give 
way  to  the  kindlier  principles  of  our  nature.  The  days  have 
been,  when  the  very  name  of  an  association  carried  terror  and 
suspicion  along  with  it.  In  a  Parochial  Association  for  religious 
objects  there  is  nothing  which  our  rulers  need  to  be  afraid  of;  and 
they  may  rest  assured,  that  the  moral  influence  of  such  institutions 
is  all  on  the  side  of  peace  and  loyalty.  But  to  confine  myself  to 
the  present  argument.  Who  does  not  see  that  they  exalt  the  gen- 
eral tone  and  character  of  our  people  ;  that  they  bring  them  nearer 
to  the  dignity  of  superior  and  cultivated  life  ;  and  that,  therefore, 
though  their  direct  aim  is  not  to  mitigate  poverty,  they  go  a  cer- 
tain way  to  dry  up  the  most  abundant  of  its  sources? 


OF    PAROCHIAL    ASSOCIATIONS.  77 

26.  Let  me  add,  that  the  direct  influence  of  Bible  principles  is 
inseparable  from  a  zeal  for  the  circulation  of  the  Bible.  It  is  not 
to  be  conceived,  that  anxiety  for  sending  it  to  others  can  exist, 
while  there  is  no  reverence  for  it  among  ourselves  ;  and  we  ap- 
peal to  those  districts  where  such  associations  have  been  formed, 
if  a  more  visible  attention  to  the  Bible,  and  a  more  serious  im- 
pression of  its  authority,  is  not  the  consequence  of  them.  Now 
the  lessons  of  this  Bible  are  all  on  the  side  of  industry.  They 
tell  us,  that  it  is  more  blessed  to  give  than  to  receive,  and  that, 
therefore,  a  man  who,  by  his  own  voluntary  idleness,  is  brought 
under  the  necessity  of  receiving,  has  disinherited  himself  of  a 
blessing.  The  poor  must  have  bread,  but  the  Bible  commands 
and  exhorts,  that  wherever  it  is  possible,  that  bread  should  be 
their  own,  and  that  all  who  are  able  should  make  it  their  own  by 
working  for  it.*  No  precept  can  be  devised  which  bears  more 
directly  on  the  source  of  pauperism.  The  minister  who,  in  his 
faithful  exposition  of  the  Bible,  urged  this  precept  successfully 
upon  his  people,  would  do  much  to  extinguish  pauperism  amongst 
them.  It  is  true,  that  he  does  not  always  urge  successfully  ;  but 
surely  if  success  is  to  be  more  looked  for  in  one  quarter  than  in 
another,  it  is  among  the  pious  and  intelligent  peasantry  whom  he 
has  assembled  around  him,  whom  he  has  formed  into  a  little  society 
for  the  circulation  of  the  Bible,  and  whose  feelings  he  has  inter- 
ested in  this  purest  and  worthiest  of  causes. 

27.  Nor  is  the  operation  of  this  principle  confined  to  the  ac- 
tual contributor.  We  have  no  doubt  that  it  has  been  beautifully 
exemplified,  even  among  those,  who,  unable  to  give  their  penny 
a  week,  either  stand  on  the  very  verge  of  pauperism,  or  have  got 
within  its  limits.  They  are  unable  to  give  anything  of  their  own, 
but  they  may  be  able  at  the  same  time  to  forego  the  wonted  allow- 
ance which  they  received  from  another,  or  a  part  of  it.  The  re- 
fusals of  the  poor  to  take  an  offered  charity,  or  to  take  the  whole 
amount  of  the  offer,  are  quite  familiar  to  a  Scottish  clergyman ; 
and  the  plea  on  which  they  set  the  refusal,  that  it  would  be  taking 
from  others  who  are  even  needier  than  they,  entitles  them,  when 
honestly  advanced,  to  all  the  praise  of  benevolence.  A  spirit  of 
pious  attachment  to  the  Bible  would  prompt  a  refusal  of  the  same 
kind.  "  You  have  other  and  higher  claims  upon  you — you  have 
the  spiritual  necessities  of  the  world  to  provide  for,  and,  that  you 
may  be  the  more  able  to  make  the  provision,  leave  me  to  the  fru- 
gality of  my  own  management.'  In  this  way  the  principle  de- 
scends, and  carries  its  healthful  influence  into  the  very  regions  of 
pauperism.  It  is  the  only  principle  competent  to  its  extirpation. 
The  obvious  expedient  of  a  positive  supply,  to  meet  the  wants  of 
existing  poverty,  has  failed,  and  the  poor  rates  of  England  will 
ever  be  a  standing  testimony  to  the  utter  inefficiency  of  this  ex- 
pedient, which,  instead  of  killing  the  disease,  has  rooted  and  con- 

*  2  Thes.  iii.  12. 


78  MORAL    AND    SPIRITUAL    INFLUENCE 

firmed  it.  Try  the  other  expedient,  then.  The  remedy  against  the 
extension  of  pauperism  does  not  lie  in  the  liberalities  of  the  rich. 
It  lies  in  the  hearts  and  habits  of  the  poor.  Plant  in  their  bosoms  a 
principle  of  independence.  Give  a  higher  tone  of  delicacy  to  their 
characters.  Teach  them  to  recoil  from  pauperism  as  a  degradation. 
The  degradation  may  at  times  be  unavoidable;  but  the  thing  which 
gives  such  alarming  extent  to  the  mischief, is  the  debasing  influence 
of  the  poor  rates,  whereby,  in  the  vast  majority  of  instances,  the 
degradation  is  voluntary.  But  if  there  be  an  exalting  influence  in 
Parochial  Associations  to  counteract  this;  if  they  foster  a  right 
spirit  of  importance;  above  all,  if  they  secure  a  readier  submission 
to  the  lessons  of  the  volume  which  they  are  designed  to  circulate, 
who  does  not  see,  that  in  proportion  as  they  are  multiplied  and  ex- 
tended over  the  face  of  the  country,  they  carry  along  with  them  the 
most  effectual  regimen  for  preventing  the  extension  of  poverty  ? 

28.  And  here  it  may  be  asked,  if  it  be  at  all  likely  that  these 
Associations  will  extend  to  such  a  degree,  as  to  have  a  sensible 
influence  upon  the  habits  of  the  country?  Nothing  more  likely. 
A  single  individual  of  influence  in  each  parish,  would  make  the 
system  universal.  In  point  of  fact,  it  is  making  progress  every 
month ;  and  such  is  the  wonderful  spirit  of  exertion  which  is  now 
abroad,  that  in  a  few  years  every  little  district  of  the  land  may 
become  the  seat  of  a  Parochial  Society.  We  are  now  upon  the 
dawn  of  very  high  anticipations  ;  and  the  wholesome  effect  upon 
the  habits  and  principles  of  the  people  at  home  is  not  the  least  of 
them.  That  part  of  the  controversy  which  relates  to  the  direct 
merits  of  the  objects  of  our  Parochial  Associations,  may  be  looked 
upon  as  already  exhausted  ;  and  could  the  objection,  founded  on 
their  interference  with  the  relief  of  the  poor,  be  annihilated,  or 
still  more,  could  it  be  converted  into  a  positive  argument  in  their 
behalf,  we  are  not  aware  of  a  single  remaining  plea,  upon  which  a 
rational  or  benevolent  man  can  refuse  his  concurrence  to  them. 

29.  And  the  plea  of  conceived  injury  to  the  poor  deserves  to 
be  attended  to.  It  wears  an  amiable  complexion,  and  we  believe, 
that,  in  some  instances,  a  real  sympathy  with  their  distresses  lies 
at  the  bottom  of  it.  Let  sympathy  be  guided  by  consideration. 
It  is  the  part  of  a  Christian  to  hail  benevolence  in  all  its  forms  ; 
but  when  a  plan  is  started  for  the  relief  of  the  destitute,  is  he  to 
be  the  victim  of  a  popular  and  sentimental  indignation,  because 
he  ventures  to  take  up  the  question  whether  the  plan  be  really  an 
effective  one  ?  We  know  that  in  various  towns  of  Scotland,  you 
meet  with  two  distinct  Penny  Societies,  one  an  Association  for 
religious  objects,  the  other  for  the  relief  of  the  indigent.  It  is  to 
be  regretted,  that  there  should  ever  be  any  jealousy  betwixt  them ; 
but  we  believe  that,  agreeably  to  what  we  have  already  said,  it 
will  often  be  found  that  the  one  suggested  the  other,  and  that  the 
supporters  of  the  former,  are  the  most  zealous,  and  active,  and 
useful  friends  of  the  latter.     We  cannot  however  suppress  the 


OF    PAROCHIAL    ASSOCIATIONS.  79 

fact,  that  there  is  now  a  growing  apprehension  lest  the  growth  of 
the  latter  Societies  should  break  down  the  delicacies  of  the  lower 
orders,  and  pave  the  way  for  a  permanent  introduction  of  poor 
rates.  There  is  a  pretty  general  impression,  that  the  system  may 
be  carried  too  far;  and  the  uncertainty  as  to  the  precise  limit,  has 
given  the  feeling  to  many,  who  embarked  with  enthusiasm,  that 
they  are  now  engaged  in  a  ticklish  and  questionable  undertaking. 
I  do  not  attempt  either  to  confirm  or  to  refute  this  impression,  but 
I  account  it  a  piece  of  justice  to  the  associations  I  am  pleading  for, 
to  assert,  that  they  stand  completely  free  of  every  such  exception. 
Our  associations  are  making  steady  advances  towards  the  attain- 
ment of  their  object,  and  the  sure  effect  of  multiplying  the  sub- 
scribers, is  to  conduct  them  in  a  shorter  time  to  the  end  of  their 
labors.  A  Society  for  the  relief  of  temporal  necessities,  is  grasp- 
ing at  an  object  that  is  completely  unattainable  ;  and  the  mischief 
is,  that  the  more  known,  and  the  more  extensive,  and  the  more 
able  it  becomes,  it  is  sure  to  be  more  counted  on,  and  at  last  to 
create  more  poverty  than  it  provides  for.  A  Bible  Society,  for 
example,  aims  at  making  every  land  a  land  of  Bibles ;  and  this 
aim  it  will  accomplish  after  it  has  translated  the  Bible  into  all 
languages,  and  distributed  a  sample  large  enough  to  create  a  na- 
tive and  a  universal  demand  for  them.*  After  the  people  of  the 
world  have  acquired  such  a  taste  for  the  Bible,  and  such  a  sense 
of  its  value,  as  to  purchase  it  for  themselves,  the  Society  terminates 
its  career  ;  and,  instead  of  the  corruptions  and  abuses  which  other 
charities  scatter  in  their  way,  it  leaves  the  poor  to  whom  it  gives, 
more  enlightened,  and  the  poor  from  whom  it  takes,  more  elevated 
than  it  found  them. 

30.  "Charity,"  says  Shakspeare,  "is  twice  blest.  It  blesses 
him  who  gives,  and  him  who  takes."  This  is  far  from  being 
universally  true.  There  is  a  blessing  annexed  to  the  heart  which 
deviseth  liberal  things.  Perhaps  the  founder  of  the  English  poor 
rates  acquired  this  blessing  ;  but  the  indolence  and  depravity 
which  they  have  been  the  instrument  of  spreading  over  the  face 
of  the  country,  are  incalculable.  If  we  wish  to  see  the  assertion 
of  the  Poet  realized  in  its  full  extent,  go  to  such  a  charity  as  we 
are  now  pleading  for,  where  the  very  exercise  of  giving  on  the 
one  hand,  and  the  instruction  received  on  the  other,  have  the  effect 
of  narrowing  the  limits  of  pauperism,  by  creating  a  more  virtuous 
and  dignified  population. 

31.  There  is  poverty  to  be  met  with  in  every  land,  and  we  are 
ready  to  admit,  that  a  certain  proportion  of  it  is  due  to  unavoid- 
able misfortune.  But  it  is  no  less  true,  that  in  those  countries 
where  there  is  a  known  and  established  provision  for  the  neces- 
sities of  the  poor,  the  greater  proportion  of  the  poverty  which 

*  But  this  native  demand  never  will  be  created  without  the  exertion  of  missionaries; 
and  the  above  reasoning  applies,  in  its  most  important  parts,  to  Missionary  Associations. 
See  Appendix. 


SO 


MORAL    AND    SPIRITUAL    INFLUENCE 


exists  in  them  is  due  to  the  debasing  influence  of  a  public  charity 
on  the  habits  of  the  people.  The  institution  we  are  pleading  for 
counteracts  this  influence.  It  does  not  annihilate  all  poverty,  but 
it  tends  to  annihilate  the  greater  part  of  it.  It  arrests  the  progress 
of  the  many  who  were  making  a  voluntary  descent  to  pauperism, 
and  it  leaves  none  to  be  provided  for  but  the  few  who  have  hon- 
estly struggled  against  their  distresses,  and  have  struggled  in  vain. 

32.  And  how  shall  they  be  provided  for  ?  You  may  erect  a 
public  institution.  This,  in  fact,  is  the  same  with  erecting  a  signal 
of  invitation,  and  the  voluntary  and  self-created  poor  will  rush  in, 
to  the  exclusion  of  those  modest  and  unobtrusive  poor  who  are 
the  genuine  objects  of  charity.  This  is  the  never-failing  mischief 
of  a  known  and  established  provision,*  and  it  has  been  sadly  ex- 
emplified in  England.  The  only  method  of  doing  away  the  mis- 
chief is  to  confide  the  relief  of  the  poor  to  individual  benevolence. 
This  draws  no  dependence  along  with  it.  It  is  not  counted  upon 
like  a  public  and  proclaimed  charity.  It  brings  the  claims  of  the 
poor  under  the  discriminating  eye  of  a  neighbor,  who  will  make 
a  difference  betwixt  a  case  of  genuine  helplessness,  and  a  case  of 
idleness  or  misconduct.  It  turns  the  tide  of  benevolence  into  its 
true  channel ;  and  it  will  ever  be  found,  that  under  its  operation, 
the  poverty  of  misfortune  is  better  seen  to,  and  the  poverty  of 
improvidence  and  guilt  is  more  effectually  prevented. 

33.  My  concluding  observation  then  is,  that  the  extension  of 
Parochial  Societies,  while  it  counteracts  in  various  directions  the 
mischief  of  the  poor  rates,  augments  that  principle  of  individual 
benevolence,  which  is  the  best  substitute  for  poor  rates.  You  add 
to  the  stock  of  individual  benevolence,  by  adding  to  the  number 
of  benevolent  individuals  ;  and  this  is  the  genuine  effect  of  a  Paro- 
chial Association.  Or,  you  add  to  the  stock  of  individual  benev- 
olence in  a  country,  by  adding  to  the  intensity  of  the  benevolent 
principle  ;  and  this  is  the  undoubted  tendency  of  a  Parochial 
Association.!  And,  what  is  of  mighty  importance  in  this  argu- 
ment, a  Parochial  Association  for  these  higher  objects  not  only 
awakens  the  benevolent  principle,  but  it  enlightens  it.  It  estab- 
lishes an  intercourse  betwixt  the  various  orders  of  society  ;  and, 
on  no  former  occasion  in  the  history  of  this  country,  have  the  rich 
and  the  poor  come  so  often  together  upon  a  footing  of  good  will. 
The  kindly  influence  of  this  is  incalculable.  It  brings  the  poor 
under  the  eye  of  their  richer  neighbors.  The  visits  and  inquiries 
connected  with  the  objects  of  our  Parochial  Societies,  bring  them 
into  contact  with  one  another.  The  rich  come  to  be  more  skilled 
in  the  wants  and  difficulties  of  the  poor;  and,  by  entering  their 

*  We  must  here  except  all  those  institutions,  the  ohject  of  which  is  to  provide  for  in- 
voluntary distress,  such  as  hospitals  and  dispensaries,  and  asylums  for  the  lunatic  or  the 
blind.  A  man  may  resign  himself  to  idleness,  and  become  wilfully  poor,  that  he  may  eat 
of  the  public  bread  ;  but  he  will  not  become  wilfully  sick  or  maimed,  that  he  may  receive 
medicines  from  a  dispensary,  or  undergo  an  operation  in  a  hospital. 

t  See  9. 


OF    PAROCHIAL    ASSOCIATIONS.  81 

houses,  and  joining  with  them  in  conversation,  they  not  only  ac- 
quire a  benevolence  towards  them,  but  they  gather  that  knowledge 
which  is  so  essential  to  guide  and  enlighten  their  benevolence.* 

*  There  never  perhaps  was  so  minute  and  statistical  a  survey  of  the  poor  families  in 
London,  as  by  the  friends  and  agents  of  the  Bible  Society.  That  this  survey  has  given 
rise  to  many  deeds  of  secular  benevolence,  I  do  not  know  from  any  positive  information; 
but  I  assert  it  upon  the  confidence  I  repose  in  the  above  principles,  and  am  willing  to 
risk  upon  this  assertion  the  credit  of  the  whole  argument. 

11 


APPENDIX. 


It  is  evident,  that  the  above  reasoning  applies,  in  its  chief  parts,  to  benevo- 
lent Associations  instituted  for  any  other  religious  purpose.  It  is  not  necessary 
for  example  to  restrict  the  argument  to  the  case  of  Bible  Associations.  I  should 
be  sorry  if  the  Bible  Society  were  to  engross  the  religious  benevolence  of  the 
public,  and  if,  in  the  multiplication  of  its  auxiliaries  over  the  face  of  the  country, 
it  were  to  occupy  the  whole  ground,  and  leave  no  room  for  the  great  and  im- 
portant claims  of  other  institutions. 

Of  this  I  conceive  that  there  is  little  danger.  The  revenue  of  each  of  these 
Societies  is  founded  upon  voluntary  contributions,  and  what  is  voluntary  may 
be  withdrawn  or  transferred  to  other  objects.  I  may  give  both  to  a  Bible  and 
a  Missionary  Society  :  or,  if  I  can  only  afford  to  give  to  one,  I  may  select 
either,  according  to  my  impression  of  their  respective  claims.  In  this  way  a 
vigilant  and  discerning  public  will  suit  its  benevolence  to  the  urgency  of  the 
case,  and  it  is  evident  that  each  institution  can  employ  the  same  methods  for 
obtaining  patronage  and  support.  Each  can,  and  does  bring  forward  a  yearly 
statement  of  its  claims  and  necessities.  Each  has  the  same  access  to  the  public, 
through  the  medium  of  the  pulpit  or  the  press.  Each  can  send  its  advocates 
over  the  face  of  the  country  ;  and  every  individual,  forming  his  own  estimate 
of  their  respective  claims,  will  apportion  his  benevolence  accordingly. 

Now  what  is  done  by  an  individual,  may  be  done  by  every  such  Association 
as  I  am  now  pleading  for.  Its  members  may  sit  in  judgment  on  the  various 
schemes  of  utility  which  are  now  in  operation ;  and,  though  originally  formed 
as  an  auxiliary  to  the  Bible  Society,  it  may  keep  itself  open  to  other  calls,  and 
occasionally  give  of  its  funds  to  Missionaries,  or  Moravians,  or  the  Society  for 
Gaelic  Schools,  or  the  African  Institution,  or  to  the  Jewish,  and  Baptist,  and 
Hibernian,  and  Lancasterian  Societies. 

In  point  of  fact,  the  subordinate  Associations  of  the  country  are  tending 
towards  this  arrangement,  and  it  is  a  highly  beneficial  arrangement.  It  carries 
in  it  a  most  salutary  control  over  all  these  various  institutions,  each  laboring  to 
maintain  itself  in  reputation  with  the  public,  and  to  secure  the  countenance 
of  this  great  patron.  Indolence  and  corruption  may  lay  hold  of  an  endowed 
charity,  but  when  the  charity  depends  upon  public  favor,  a  few  glaring  exam- 
ples of  mismanagement  would  annihilate  it. 

During  a  few  of  the  first  years  of  the  Bible  Society,  the  members  of  other 
Societies  were  alarmed  at  the  rapid  extension  of  its  popularity,  and  expressed 
their  fears  lest  it  should  engross  all  the  attention  and  benevolence  of  the  relig- 
ious public.  But  the  reverse  has  happened,  and  a  principle  made  use  of  in 
the  body  of  this  pamphlet  may  be  well  illustrated  by  the  history  of  this 
matter.*  The  Bible  Society  has  drawn  a  great  yearly  sum  of  money  from  the 
public;  and  the  first  impression  was  that  it  would  exhaust  the  fund  for  relig- 
ious charities.  But  while  it  drew  money  from  the  hand,  it  sent  a  fresh  and 
powerful  excitement  of  Christian  benevolence  into  the  heart;  and,  under  the 

*  See  9. 


APPENDIX.  83 

influence  of  this  creative  principle,  the  fund  has  extended  to  such  a  degree,  as 
not  only  to  meet  the  demands  of  the  new  Society,  but  to  yield  a  more  abun- 
dant revenue  to  the  older  Societies  than  ever.  We  believe,  that  the  excite- 
ment goes  much  further  than  this,  and  that  many  a  deed  of  ordinary  charity 
could  be  traced  to  the  impulse  of  the  cause  we  are  pleading  for.  We  hazard 
the  assertion,  that  many  thousands  of  those  who  contribute  to  the  Bible  Soci- 
ety, find  in  themselves  a  greater  readiness  to  every  good  work,*  since  the 
period  of  their  connection  with  it,  and  that  in  the  wholesome  channel  of  individ- 
ual benevolence,  more  hunger  is  fed,  and  more  nakedness  clothed,  throughout 
the  land  than  at  any  period  anterior  to  the  formation  of  our  Religious  Societies. 

The  alarm,  grounded  upon  the  tendency  of  these  Societies,  with  their  vast 
revenues,  to  impoverish  the  country,  is  ridiculous.  If  ever  their  total  revenue 
shall  amount  to  a  sum  which  can  make  it  worthy  of  consideration  to  an  en- 
lightened economist  at  all,  it  may  be  proved  that  it  trenches  upon  no  national 
interest  whatever  ;  that  it  leaves  population  and  Public  Revenue  on  precisely 
the  same  looting  of  extent  and  prosperity  in  which  it  found  them ;  and  that  it 
interferes  with  no  one  object  which  Patriot  or  Politician  needs  to  care  for.  In 
the  meantime  it  may  suffice  to  state,  that  the  Income  of  all  the  Bible  and 
Missionary  Societies  in  the  Island,  would  not  do  more  than  defray  the  annual 
maintenance  of  one  Ship  of  the  Line.f  When  put  by  the  side  of  the  millions 
which  are  lavished  without  a  sigh,  on  the  enterprises  of  war,  it  is  nothing;  and 
shall  this  veriest  trifle  be  grudged  to  the  advancement  of  a  cause,  which,  when 
carried  to  its  accomplishment,  will  put  an  end  to  war,  and  banish  all  its  pas- 
sions and  atrocities  from  the  world  ? 

I  should  be  sorry  if  Penny  Associations  were  to  bind  themselves  down  to  the 
support  of  the  Bible  Society.  I  should  like  to  see  them  exercising  a  judgment 
over  the  numerous  claims  which  are  now  before  the  public,  and  giving  occa- 
sionally of  their  funds  to  other  religious  institutions.  The  effect  of  this  very 
exercise  would  be  to  create  a  liberal  and  well-informed  peasantry  ;  to  open  a 
wider  sphere  to  their  contemplations ;  and  to  raise  the  standard,  not  merely  of 
piety,  but  of  general  intelligence  amongst  them.  The  diminution  of  pauperism 
is  only  part  of  the  general  effect  which  the  multiplication  of  these  Societies 
will  bring  about  in  the  country ;  and  if  my  limits  allowed  me  I  might  expatiate 
on  their  certain  influence  in  raising  the  tone  and  character  of  the  British  Popu- 
lation.:]: 

*  Titus  iii.  1.  f  This  calculation  applies  to  the  year  1814. 

I  It  is  thought  by  some  that  the  assumption  of  the  title  "  Bible  Association,"  carries 
in  it  an  obligation  to  devote  all  the  funds  to  the  Bible  Society.  The  title  may  easily  be 
modified  so  as  to  leave  the  most  entire  liberty  to  every  Association  to  give  of  its  funds  to 
any  Religious  Society  whatever. 


ON  THE  CONSISTENCY 

OF    THE 

LEGAL   AND   VOLUNTARY  PRINCIPLES, 

AND   THE 

JOINT  SUPPORT  WHICH  THEY  MIGHT  RENDER 

TO    THE    CAUSE    BOTH    OF 

CHRISTIAN  AND  COMMON  EDUCATION. 


There  is  nothing  more  palpable  on  the  face  of  Jewish  history, 
than  the  connection  which  obtains  between  the  personal  character 
of  the  monarch  and  the  general  prosperity  of  the  kingdom.  And 
it  is  alike  obvious,  that  the  one  stood  related  to  the  other  in  the 
way  of  cause  and  consequence,  from  the  interest  which  the  relig- 
ion that  sways  the  heart  of  the  king  led  him  to  take  in  the  religion 
of  his  people.  It  was  at  the  direct  charge  or  bidding  of  Jehosha- 
phat,  and  in  his  direct  employment,  that  the  Levites  taught  in 
Judea  and  had  the  book  of  the  law  of  the  Lord  with  them,  and 
went  about  throughout  all  the  cities  of  Judea  and  taught  the  peo- 
ple. And  so  also  Hezekiah,  as  is  said,  "spake  comfortably  to  all 
the  Levites  that  taught  the  good  knowledge  of  the  Lord."  And 
so  also  Nehemiah,  who,  if  not  the  king,  was  at  least  the  supreme 
magistrate,  the  representative  and  depositary  of  the  civil  power, 
gave  the  direct  sanction  of  his  authority  to  the  Levites,  when  they 
taught  the  people,  and  read  in  the  book,  in  the  law  of  God  dis- 
tinctly, and  gave  the  sense,  and  caused  them  to  understand  the 
reading. — All  marking,  that,  in  these  days,  it  was  held  a  duty  and 
a  propriety  in  the  rulers  of  the  state,  to  concern  themselves  with 
the  religious  knowledge  of  the  people — to  provide  for  which,  they 
maintained  and  employed  teachers,  whose  business  it  was  to  go 
over  the  land,  and  to  serve  and  supply  every  city  with  instruction 
in  the  law  of  God — thus  fulfilling  the  object  of  an  ordination,  given 
by  Moses  at  the  outset  of  the  Jewish  polity,  when  he  bade  ''gather 
the  people  together,  men  and  women  and  children,  and  the  stran- 


THE    LEGAL    AND    VOLUNTARY    PRINCIPLES.  85 

ger  that  is  within  thy  gates,  that  they  may  hear,  and  that  they 
may  learn,  and  fear  the  Lord  your  God,  and  observe  to  do  all  the 
words  of  this  law,  and  that  their  children  which  had  not  known 
anything  may  hear  and  learn  to  fear  the  Lord  your  God." 

But  while  such  was  esteemed  the  befitting  duty  of  Government 
in  these  days,  there  were  other  parties  who  shared  the  duty  and 
the  obligation  along  with  them.  In  particular,  there  seems  to 
have  been  felt  by  all  right-minded  parents,  a  peculiar  and  solemn 
responsibility  for  the  religious  knowledge  of  their  children.  This, 
if  we  may  judge  from  various  passages,  both  in  their  books  of 
history  and  books  of  devotion,  must  have  been  a  great  character- 
istic and  national  virtue  among  the  children  of  Israel.  We  meet 
with  it  so  early  as  in  the  person  of  Abraham,  the  great  progenitor 
of  the  Hebrew  people,  of  whom  we  read  this  illustrious  testimony 
from  the  mouth  of  God  Himself — "  For  I  know  him,  that  he  will 
command  his  children  and  his  household  after  him ;  and  they  shall 
keep  the  way  of  the  Lord  to  do  justice  and  judgment."  We  read 
of  it  in  the  covenant,  which  Joshua  made  with  the  people,  when 
he  bade  them  choose  the  part  they  would  take — telling  them  that 
"for  me  and  for  my  house  we  will  serve  the  Lord  ;"  and  the  people 
with  one  consent  made  promise,  that  this  should  be  the  habit  and 
the  observance  of  all  their  families.  We  would  even  infer  it,  from 
the  awful  tragedy  which  befell  the  house  of  Eli,  in  whose  signal 
punishment  for  the  neglect  of  family  discipline,  the  people  of  the 
land  would  behold  an  impressive  manifestation  of  the  divine  will, 
on  the  side  of  the  religion  of  families.  But,  without  resting  on 
individual  examples,  we  know  that  the  task  and  the  obligation  of 
parents  religiously  to  educate  their  children,  held  a  conspicuous 
and  a  foremost  place  in  the  code  of  Jewish  morality.  The  facts 
and  the  doctrines  of  their  religion,  were  things  which  they  heard 
and  knew  ;  and  therefore,  to  make  use  of  the  language  of  the 
Psalmist,  they  did  "not  hide  them  from  their  children,  showing  to 
the  generation  to  come  the  praises  of  the  Lord,  and  His  strength 
and  His  wonderful  works  that  He  hath  done.  For  He  established 
a  testimony  in  Jacob,  and  appointed  a  law  in  Israel,  which  He 
commanded  our  fathers  that  they  should  make  them  known  to 
their  children,  that  the  generation  to  come  might  know  them — 
even  the  children  which  should  be  born,  and  should  arise  and 
declare  them  to  their  children,  that  they  might  set  their  hope  in 
God,  and  not  forget  the  works  of  God  ;  but  keep  his  command- 
ments." 

Here  then  we  have  the  example  of  a  great  duty,  and  that  for 
the  fulfilment  of  a  great  object,  even  the  maintenance  and  preser- 
vation of  religion  in  the  land — this  duty  we  say  not  monopolized 
or  exclusively  engrossed  by  one  party,  but  shared  between  two 
— It  being  held,  in  these  Old  Testament  times,  to  be  the  rightful 
care  of  the  king  upon  his  throne,  to  look  after  and  provide  what 
in  him  lay  for  the  religion  of  his  subjects ;  and  the  no  less  rightful 


86 


CONSISTENCY    OF    THE 


care  of  the  parents  of  families,  to  provide  what  in  them  lay  for 
the  religion  of  their  children.  We  are  here  presented  with  the 
example  of  two  powers  or  two  influences,  blended  together  in 
friendly  co-operation,  for  the  accomplishment  of  one  and  the  same 
design.  There  was  no  conflict,  no  contrariety  between  them. 
The  one  party  did  not  fear  to  do  too  much,  lest  it  should  be  left 
to  the  other  party  to  do  too  little.  Such  a  jealousy,  we  believe, 
was  never  once  heard  of  in  these  days.  On  the  one  hand,  it 
would  have  been  held  quite  monstrous  in  the  king  to  say,  that  the 
morality  and  religion  of  the  young  is  not  my  affair,  but  that  of 
their  own  parents ;  and  I  will  therefore  care  for  none  of  these 
things.  And,  on  the  other  hand,  it  would  have  been  held  still 
more  monstrous  and  unnatural  for  parents  to  say,  that  the  educa- 
tion of  our  children  is  the  duty  of  our  rulers ;  and  we  shall  take 
no  part  of  a  burden,  which  legitimately  lies  upon  them.  Such  a 
contest  as  this,  if  it  could  be  imagined,  wherein  each  of  the  two 
parties  strives,  for  its  own  exoneration,  to  cast  as  much  of  the 
weight  as  possible  upon  the  other,  were  not  the  way  of  bringing 
about  the  result  of  a  well-trained  or  well-taught  boyhood  in  any 
land ;  but  between  them,  we  should  behold  the  melancholy  spec- 
tacle of  a  depraved  and  degenerate  society.  The  utmost  effort 
and  vigilance  of  both  will  fall  greatly  short  of  perfection ;  and  the 
neglect  of  either  were  of  deadly  and  withering  influence  on  the 
virtue  of  any  commonwealth.  With  an  irreligious  population, 
even  under  a  religious  government,  we  should  have  many  an  ex- 
hibition of  reckless  defiance,  both  to  the  divine  law  and  to  human 
authority — as  when  good  king  Hezekiah  sent  his  posts  from  city 
to  city,  through  the  country  of  Ephraim,  and  Manasseh,  even  to 
Zebulon,  to  invite  the  people  to  return  to  the  Lord  from  whom 
they  had  revolted,  and  to  keep  his  passover ;  and  they  laughed 
them  to  scorn,  and  they  mocked  them.  And,  on  the  other  hand, 
with  an  irreligious  government,  though  with  the  benefit  at  first  of 
an  orderly  and  religious  population,  we  should  witness  the  rapid 
declension  and  disappearance  of  all  sound  principle  in  the  land  as 
in  the  days  of  the  idolatrous  Ahab,  when  a  hidden  and  unseen 
remnant  of  true  worshippers,  was  all  that  continued  steadfast  with 
God  among  the  many  thousands  of  Israel.  It  is  miserable  work, 
this  shifting  of  the  responsibility  backward  and  forward  from  one 
party  to  another.  Both  parties  in  this  cause  are  responsible — 
parents  to  do  all  they  can  for  the  right  and  religious  schooling  of 
their  children  ;  and  government  to  provide,  in  right  institutions, 
all  helps  and  facilities  for  the  same  object.  And  it  is  only  when 
a  common  spirit  actuates  them  both — when  the  influence  of  the 
Christian  parent  in  his  household,  is  backed  by  the  paternal  influ- 
ence of  a  Christian  government  in  the  state,  that  the  sacred  cause 
of  good  education  will  prosper  in  any  land  :  or  that,  as  if  by  the 
circulation  of  a  healthful  life's  blood  from  the  heart  to  the  ex- 
tremities of  the  body  politic,  a  people,  now  in  the  rude  infancy 


LEGAL    AND    VOLUNTARY    PRINCIPLES.  87 

both  of  character  and  civilization,  will  be  matured  into  a  nation  of 
well-principled  and  well-conditioned  families. 

The  records  of  the  children  of  Israel,  tell  us  what  religious 
kings  did  for  their  people,  and  religious  parents  did  for  their 
children  ;  but  they  tell  us  nothing  of  what  religious  philanthropists 
did  for  the  cause  of  education  in  their  respective  neighborhoods. 
Confident  we  are,  that  if  any  such  sprung  up  at  that  period,  their 
number  and  their  exertions,  instead  of  deadening  the  zeal  of  any 
right-minded  government  in  the  same  noble  enterprise ;  would 
but  stimulate  their  energies  the  more,  by  the  ascent  of  a  virtuous 
influence  from  the  people  to  the  throne.  And,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  munificence  of  the  government  would  lay  no  check  or  dis- 
couragement on  the  liberality  of  private  individuals.  It  is  not 
conceivable,  that  the  manifestation  of  such  a  spirit  in  the  high 
places  of  the  land,  would  cause  that,  throughout  the  community 
at  large,  the  love  of  men  for  their  fellows  and  acquaintances 
around  them  should  therefore  wax  cold.  The  effect  would  be 
precisely  opposite  to  this.  The  patriotism  of  statesmen,  and  the 
philanthropy  of  private  citizens,  would  act  and  react  with  power- 
ful and  most  salutary  operation  on  each  other.  Both  would  flow 
in  the  same  current ;  and  their  union  is  fitted  to  enrich  a  land  with 
those  institutes  for  the  promotion  of  knowledge  and  virtue,  which, 
when  rightly  conducted  and  rightly  patronized,  constitute  the  real 
wealth  and  well-being  of  a  nation. 

But  though  we  know  little  respecting  such  a  union  of  efforts 
and  contributions  between  the  prince  and  the  people,  during  the 
subsistence  of  the  Jewish  monarchy,  to  promote  schooling  for 
behoof  of  the  young — we  know  a  great  deal,  for  we  read  often  in 
the  Bible,  of  a  union  between  these  two  parties,  to  uphold  the 
services  of  religion  for  behoof  of  the  community  at  large.  There 
was,  in  the  first  instance,  a  legal  provision  for  the  maintenance  of 
ecclesiastical  men,  which  it  would  have  been  not  only  spoliation 
but  sacrilege  for  the  state  to  have  invaded.  But  in  the  second 
instance,  this  did  not  supersede  the  free-will  offerings  of  the  pious 
and  the  well-disposed — both  for  an  additional  maintenance  to  the 
priest,  and  more  particularly  for  the  erection  of  ecclesiastical 
fabrics.  The  truth  is,  that,  in  the  history  of  the  Jews,  notwith- 
standing the  more  express  and  explicit  sanction  of  the  divine 
authority  for  their  Church  establishment  than  for  that  of  any  of 
the  nations  in  Christendom,  yet,  so  far  from  the  legal  support  of 
religion  superseding  the  voluntary,  the  voluntary  went  before  the 
legal.  And  accordingly,  when  they  abode  in  the  wilderness,  we 
find  that  the  costly  tabernacle  was  reared,  not  by  a  tax  but  by  a 
subscription  from  the  produce,  not  of  a  compulsory  assessment, 
but  of  spontaneous  contributions  from  the  generous  and  the  willing- 
hearted  of  the  children  of  Israel.  And  this  way  of  it  was  dis- 
tinctly authorized  by  God  himself;  for  He  commanded,  not  that 
the  people  should  give — He  did  not  thus  overbear  their  inclina- 


88  CONSISTENCY    OF    THE 

tions  ;  but  He  commanded  Moses  to  take  of  every  man  that  gave 
willingly  with  his  heart,  and  Moses  made  proclamation,  that  who- 
soever was  of  a  willing  heart  should  bring  him  an  offering  to  the 
Lord  ;  and  such  were  the  power  and  productiveness  of  this  method, 
that  the  people,  not  only  brought  what  was  sufficient,  but  too 
much,  so  that  they  had  to  be  restrained  from  bringing  any  more. 
Thus  did  the  voluntary  method  precede  the  legal ;  and  even  after 
this  method  was  established,  it  did  not  supersede  the  voluntary.  For 
we  afterwards  find,  that,  as  it  was  resorted  to  in  the  erection  of 
the  tabernacle,  so  it  was  resorted  to  in  the  erection  of  the  temple 
— for  the  raising  of  which  there  was  a  composition  of  the  legal 
and  the  voluntary.     David  gave  of  his  treasure,  and  the  people 
gave  of  theirs  ;  and,  under  the  impulse  of  a  common  enthusiasm, 
all  jealousy  between  these  two  parties  was  given  to  the  winds — 
for  we  read  that  the  people  rejoiced,  for  that  they  offered  willingly, 
because  with  perfect  heart  they  offered  willingly  to  the  Lord  ;  and 
David  the  king  also  rejoiced  with  great  joy.     It  is  interesting  to 
remark,  how,  in  these  days,  instead  of  an  arena  of  conflict,  on 
which  the  two  principles  of  the  legal  and  the  voluntary  were 
placed  in  hostile  array,  as  if  the  triumph  of  the  one  should  lead 
to  the  extermination  of  the  other — both  subsisted,  nay  flourished 
contemporaneously,  not  as  warring  elements,  but  in  friendly  and 
most  effective  coadjutorship  ;  when  the  free-will  offerings  of  the 
people  were  superadded  to  the  levies  of  Solomon,  and  the  magni- 
ficent temple  of  Jerusalem  was  the  result  of  this  happy  and  har- 
monious combination.     Nor  does  this  twofold  method  of  support- 
ing the  worship  of  the  Lord,  seem  to  have  been  lost  sight  of, 
even  to  the  latest  ages  of  the  Jewish  dispensation — as  in  the  days 
of  King  Joash,  when  the  temple  needed  repair,  he   quoted  the 
example   of  Moses   for    a  collection ;    and   accordingly  a   chest 
with  a  hole  bored  in  the  middle  of  it,  was  made  by  his  orders,  and 
set    out  at  the  gate  of  the  temple ;  and  this  authoritative  com- 
mandment of  the  king,  met  with  the  willing  cordiality  of  his  sub- 
jects— for  wre  read,  that  all  the  princes  and  all  the  people  rejoiced, 
and  brought  and  cast  in  until  they  had  made  an  end,  and  thus 
they  gathered  money  in  abundance.     And  in  the  days  of  Heze- 
kiah,   when  there   was    another    revival    from  idolatry,  we    are 
informed  of  the  people  bringing  in  their  tithes,  their  legally  or- 
dained  tithes  ;  but,   along  with  these,  that  they  also  brought  in 
their   free-will  offerings.     And   in  the   reign  of  Josiah,   another 
bright  and  sunny  period  of  the  Jewish  history,  we  are  again  told 
of  a  collection  at  the  door  of  the  temple,  for  the  reparation  of  its 
fabric  ;  but   over  and   above  this,  of  money  gathered  over  the 
land,  by  men  who  went  forth  in  deputations  among  the  people  of 
Manasseh  and  Ephraim,  and  of  all  the   remnant  of  Israel,  and 
of  all  Judah  and  Benjamin,  and  returned  with  their  contributions 
to  Jerusalem.     Further  onward,  at  the  rebuilding  of  the  temple, 
do  we  meet  with  the  same  composition  of  the  legal  and  the  vol- 


LEGAL    AND    VOLUNTARY    PRINCIPLES.  89 

untary  ;  and  with  this  remarkable  peculiarity,  that  a  heathen 
prince  gave  his  authority  to  the  one,  while  a  believing  people 
gave  out  of  their  abundance  to  the  other — he  commanding  his 
own  subjects  to  help  the  enterprise,  with  their  silver  and  their 
gold  and  their  goods  and  their  beasts ;  they  coming  forth  of  their 
own  accord,  with  their  free-will  offerings — he  ordering  a  grant 
for  the  edifice,  for  we  expressly  read  of  money  being  expended 
on  it  "  according  to  the  grant  which  they  had  of  Cyrus  king  of 
Persia ;"  and  agreeably  to  the  terms  of  the  decree,  that  the  ex- 
penses be  given  out  of  the  king's  house.  Yet  this  did  not  super- 
sede the  "free-will  offering  of  the  people,  and  of  the  priests' 
offering  willingly,  for  the  house  of  their  God  which  is  in  Jerusa- 
lem"— neither  in  the  days  of  Cyrus,  nor  after  him  in  the  days  of 
Artaxerxes,  who  decreed,  that  whatever  more  should  be  needful 
for  the  house  of  God,  should  be  bestowed  out  of  the  king's  treas- 
ure-house, and  gave  orders  to  his  treasurers  accordingly.  In  these 
days  there  was  a  perfect  coalescence  of  those  two  elements,  be- 
tween which  now  we  read  of  nothing  but  fiercest  controversy. 
To  the  public  treasures  of  the  prince,  and  the  legal  tithes  of  the 
people,  there  were  added  the  spontaneous  offerings  of  both ;  and 
even  in  the  days  of  the  New  Testament,  while  there  still  subsisted 
a  priesthood,  and  that  legal  economy  yet  unrepealed  by  which 
their  maintenance  was  secured  to  them — we  can  trace  neverthe- 
less the  hand  of  private  liberality,  in  furtherance  and  support  of 
the  same  cause ;  as  in  the  case  of  the  Roman  centurion,  honored 
by  the  people  of  Judea  among  whom  he  was  stationed,  as  a  good 
man,  because,  in  the  language  of  their  own  approving  testimony, 
he  loved  their  nation  and  had  built  them  a  synagogue. 

Even  from  this  brief  and  rapid  induction  which  we  have  now 
offered,  it  is  impossible  not  to  conclude,  that,  in  the  times  of  the 
older  dispensation,  the  public  and  the  private,  the  legal  and  the 
voluntary,  coalesced  in  the  support  and  service  of  religion  ;  and 
that  for  the  promotion  of  this  glorious  object,  they  worked  as  it 
were  into  each  other's  hands.  If  there  was  any  contest  between 
them,  it  was  not,  at  least  in  the  best  days  of  the  Jewish  common- 
wealth, it  was  not  which  should  contribute  the  least,  but  which 
should  contribute  the  most  to  the  maintenance  of  the  worship  of  the 
God  of  Israel.  In  the  full  tide  of  a  common  and  a  rejoicing  sym- 
pathy between  the  king  and  his  people,  they  provoked  each  other 
to  love  and  to  good  works  ;  and,  whatever  rivalry  was  felt  on  either 
side,  it  was  founded  on  a  noble  and  generous  emulation,  that  led  each 
party  to  render  the  greatest  possible  offering  to  the  cause  of  piety 
and  the  public  weal.  And  if  ever  there  was  an  approximation  to  the 
joy  of  heaven  upon  earth,  it  was  at  one  of  those  great  convocations, 
which  took  place  under  the  good  kings  of  the  children  of  Israel — ■ 
a  mora!  festival,  when  the  whole  nation  held  jubilee ;  and  the 
heart  of  the  king  upon  his  throne,  beat  in  unison  with  the  hosan- 
nahs  of  the  multitude.     The  spirit  which  reigned  over  such  an 

12 


90  CONSISTENCY    OF    THE 

assemblage  as  this,  is  as  unlike  as  possible,  is  removed  by  the 
whole  distance  of  the  antipodes,  from  that  spirit,  cold  and  wither- 
ing and  heartless,  which  animates  the  paltry  economics  of  the 
present  day.  The  king,  on  the  one  hand,  did  not  abandon  the 
support  of  religion  to  the  voluntary  principle,  or  say  that  it  was 
for  the  people  alone  to  bear  the  expenses  of  their  own  ministra- 
tions: Neither  did  the  people  leave  altogether  this  highest  interest 
of  themselves  and  their  families  to  the  legal  principle  ;  or  say 
that  it  was  for  the  state  alone,  to  do  all  and  provide  all  for  the 
religion  of  the  land.  The  two  principles  moved  in  harmony 
together ;  and  we  leave  yourselves  to  judge,  whether  in  their 
generous  concurrence,  or  in  their  fretful  and  fiery  opposition,  we 
behold  the  best  and  happiest  state  of  the  commonwealth. 

Now  all  this,  instead  of  being  a  narrative  of  useless  and  ex- 
ploded antiquarianism,  admits  of  a  close  and  practical  application 
to  the  present  times  ;  and  more  especially  to  the  present  juncture 
in  the  state  and  history  of  our  own  nation.  A  lesson  might  be 
read  out  of  it  to  each  of  the  two  parties,  whose  proceedings  we 
have  just  been  describing  to  you — that  is,  to  the  Government  on 
the  one  hand,  and  to  the  people  on  the  other.  When  the  rare  op- 
portunity occurs  of  addressing  the  first,  as,  for  example,  in  a  pub- 
lic sermon  to  the  two  houses  of  Parliament,  a  considerable  stress, 
when  advocating  a  legal  provision  for  the  services  of  religion  in 
a  land,  should  be  laid  on  the  Jewish  analogy — for,  though  not  so 
absolutely  conclusive  as  if  a  specific  and  express  precept  could 
be  appealed  to,  requiring  the  same  aid  and  countenance  from  the 
civil  governor  in  the  economy  under  which  we  now  live,  as  was 
then  rendered  under  an  economy  that  is  dissolved  and  passed 
away — it  should  ever  be  recollected,  not  only,  that,  having  in  one 
notable  instance  in  past  history,  even  that  history  of  which  the 
apostle  tells  us  that  it  has  been  preserved  and  transmitted  down- 
ward for  our  admonition  on  whom  the  latter  ends  of  the  world 
have  come — not  only,  in  that  great  and  memorable  instance,  have 
we  the  distinct  and  declared  sanction  of  the  divine  authority  for 
the  maintenance  of  the  church  by  the  state  ?  and  which  therefore, 
as  being  in  that  instance  an  express  appointment  of  God,  can 
have  nothing  in  its  own  nature  that  is  morally  or  absolutely  wrong 
— But  we  should  further  recollect,  that  what  was  thus  commanded 
to  Jewish  kings  in  many  passages  of  the  Old  Testament,  has  never 
been  forbidden  to  Christian  kings  in  a  single  passage  of  the  New 
Testament;  and  therefore  that  there  is  nothing  in  Scripture  to  coun- 
tervail, but  rather  everything  to  confirm  that  argument,  by  which 
the  lawfulness,  or  rather  the  positive  and  bounden  duty  of  every 
Government  to  provide  for  the  religious  education  of  the  people, 
has,  on  every  principle,  as  we  think,  of  piety  and  sound  patriotism, 
been  made  the  subject  of  a  resistless  demonstration.  But  on  this 
we  expatiate  no  farther  at  present,  for  it  is  with  the  other  party, 
with  a  certain  portion   of  the   people  that  we  are  now  holding 


LEGAL    AND    VOLUNTARY    PRINCIPLES.  91 

converse  ;  and  the  more  proper  theme  therefore  of  our  present 
occasion,  is  the  second  lesson — the  duty  which  lies,  not  merely  on 
rulers,  but  on  private  citizens,  to  provide  for  the  education  of  the 
community  both  in  the  things  of  sacredness  and  the  things  of  or- 
dinary scholarship. 

The  first  consideration  then  which  we  offer  is,  that,  if,  even 
under  the  Jewish  economy,  it  was  the  part  and  duty  of  the  peo- 
ple to  help  onward  from  their  own  liberality  the  maintenance  of 
religion  in  the  land — there  lies  a  still  more  distinct  and  palpable  ob- 
ligation on  private  individuals,  under  the  economy  of  the  present 
day.  For  recollect,  there  could  be  no  mistake,  as  there  rested  no 
obscurity,  on  the  duty  of  kings,  or  the  duty  of  the  Government  in 
Judea,  to  provide  for  the  same  object — for  these,  of  all  others,  were 
the  times  of  the  most  palpable  and  declared  connection  between 
the  church  and  the  state,  when  the  support  of  ecclesiastical  institu- 
tions and  ecclesiastical  men,  was  interwoven  with  the  whole  juris- 
prudence and  polity  of  the  Israelitish  nation.  And  yet,  even  during 
the  subsistence  of  that  theocracy,  when  God  laid  his  immediate 
command  on  the  rulers  of  the  Hebrews,  to  look  after  and  provide 
for  the  religion  of  the  people  ;  and  not  one  step  of  reasoning  was 
necessary,  to  make  out  the  connection  between  this  being  the  duty 
of  the  king  and  the  promulgated  will  of  Him  who  is  the  King  of 
kings — yet,  even  then,  when  so  express  and  intelligible  an  obligation 
lay  upon  the  one  party,  that  is  on  the  monarch — this  did  not  exon- 
erate the  other  party,  that  is  the  people,  or  discharge  them  from  all 
part  or  fellowship  in  the  exercise  of  the  same  duty.  In  that  land, 
where,  of  all  the  countries  of  the  earth,  there  was  the  greatest 
amount  of  tithes — there  also  was  there  the  greatest  amount  of  free- 
will offerings ;  and,  along  with  the  immense  property  and  firmly 
constituted  rights  of  an  established  priesthood,  there  flourished  at 
the  same  time,  in  the  utmost  exuberance  and  vigor  the  generosity 
of  a  willing  people.  The  one  party  did  not  fear  to  give  largely, 
lest  the  other  party  should  give  less.  The  people  did  not,  on  the 
maxim  that  it  was  the  duty  of  the  Government  to  support  religion, 
decline,  on  that  account,  the  farther  support  and  extension  of  it 
themselves.  It  was  at  the  best  and  brightest  periods  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  nation,  that  both  parties  gave  with  the  most  unsparing 
hand  ;  and  if  ever  there  was  a  time  when  the  heart  and  the 
treasure-house  of  the  king  were  most  open  to  the  necessities  of 
religion — then  also  was  the  time  when  the  hearts  of  the  people, 
as  if  touched  by  responsive  sympathy,  were  most  alive  to  the  same 
cause  ;  and  the  fullest,  and  freest  contributions  were  made  by  the 
citizens,  for  perfecting  the  services,  or  repairing  the  wastes  and 
the  breaches,  that  had  taken  place  in  the  worship  of  the  God  of 
Israel. 

We  have  no  doubt  of  its  being  the  wisdom  and  the  duty  of 
a  Christian,  as  well  as  of  a  Jewish  monarch,  to  furnish  all  neces- 
sary expenses,  for  the  instruction  of  his  people  in  the  knowledge 


92  CONSISTENCY    OF    THE 

of  the  true  religion  ;  and  for  the  maintenance  of  the  true  worship  of 
God  in  his  dominions.  But  it  must  at  the  same  time  be  admitted,  that 
the  obligation  of  the  one  is  not  so  pointedly  or  so  unequivocally 
told  him  in  the  Bible,  as  the  obligation  of  the  other  is.  A  king  of 
the  Jewish  nation,  could  not  possibly  shut  his  eyes  against  the  ex- 
press requisition  laid  upon  him  in  Scripture,  to  provide  for  the  ser- 
vices of  the  sanctuary  ;  or,  if  this  failed,  he  could  not  shut  his  ears 
against  the  rebuke  of  those  living  prophets,  who  were  sent  from 
time  to  time  to  denounce  the  wrath  of  heaven,  against  the  neglect 
and  abandonment  of  heaven's  own  ordinances.  We  believe  the 
obligation  of  the  king  in  a  Christian  nation,  to  be  no  less  real ;  but 
then  it  is  not  so  palpable.  He  is  more  left  to  find  it  out  by  a 
train  of  inference,  which,  though  grounded  on  the  truths  and 
principles  of  revelation,  often  does  not  tell  so  powerfully  on  the 
consciences — as  when  the  lesson  is  visibly  given  forth,  and  pre- 
sented as  it  were  to  the  intuition  of  the  mind  in  the  immediate 
characters  and  very  words  of  revelation.  A  king  in  Christendom 
therefore,  might  more  readily  escape  from  the  sense  and  convic- 
tion of  his  duty,  than  a  king  in  Judea  could ;  and  we  ask  if  this 
do  not  lay  a  greater  responsibility  on  the  people  of  Christendom — 
because  it  may  often  leave  them  more  to  do  for  the  maintenance 
of  religion  in  their  respective  lands,  than  fell  to  the  share  of  the 
people  in  Judea.  Nothing  can  be  imagined  more  direct  or  per- 
emptory, than  that  voice  from  the  God  of  heaven,  which  devolved 
on  every  Jewish  king  the  maintenance  of  the  established  religion, 
within  the  limits  of  his  monarchy  ;  and  yet  the  Jewish  people  did 
not,  on  that  account,  hold  themselves  absolved  from  all  participation 
in  the  good  work — and  so  they  lent  a  helping  hand,  and  added  their 
free-will  offerings,  both  to  the  legal  endowments  that  had  been 
fixed  at  the  original  institution  of  their  church,  and  to  the  grants 
that  from  time  to  time  were  issued  by  royal  command  from  the 
public  treasury.  Now,  if,  in  these  days  of  perfect  certainty  about 
the  duty  of  their  kings,  nevertheless  the  Jewish  people  over  and 
above  came  forward  and  did  so  much — in  our  days  of  controversy 
and  denial  about  the  duty  of  our  kings,  and  when  it  is  contended 
by  many  that  the  Scripture  giveth  forth  an  uncertain  or  even  an 
adverse  sound  upon  the  matter,  are  we  the  Christian  people  to 
stand  by  and  to  do  nothing?  In  the  Old  Testament  period,  both 
parties  joined  their  efforts  and  their  sacrifices  ;  and  all  proved 
little  enough  for  the  maintenance  of  the  temple,  and  synagogues 
of  the  land.  If  in  the  New  Testament  period,  the  one  party,  or 
the  Government,  are  beginning  to  sit  loose  to  their  duty,  or  even 
threatening  to  cast  it  off  altogether — whether  is  that  a  reason 
for  us  the  other  party,  sitting  loose  to  our  duty  also,  or  binding  it 
all  the  more  firmly  on  our  conscience  and  observation  than  here- 
tofore? Should  we  imitate  their  example ;  or  were  it  not  all  the 
more  incumbent  on  us,  that  we  should  flee  to  the  rescue  of  the 
church,  when  hostility  lowered  upon  us  from  high  places,  and 


LEGAL    AND    VOLUNTARY    PRINCIPLES.  93 

rumor  was  afloat  that  old  friends  were  forsaking  us,  and  the  main 
earthly  pillar  of  the  edifice  was  on  the  eve  of  giving  way?  Is 
this  of  all  others,  we  ask,  the  reason  for  adding  one  desertion  or 
one  act  of  abandonment  to  another ;  and  what  shall  we  think  of 
those,  who,  when  asked  to  do  something  either  for  schools  or 
churches,  plead  absolved,  on  the  aphorism  of  which  they  tell  us 
in  didactic  phrase  and  with  the  cold  metaphysical  face  of  a  jurist 
on  the  question,  that  it  is  the  part  of  the  Government  to  do  all — 
and,  on  the  pretext  of  shifting  the  duty  to  its  proper  quarter, 
always  contrive  to  shift  the  burden  of  it  away  from  themselves. 

Be  assured  that  the  true  principle,  is  for  each  party,  as  they 
have  opportunity,  to  do  all  they  can  for  the  glory  of  God,  and  the 
good  of  their  fellow-men.  Though  all  others  should  do  their  part 
to  the  full,  there  is  still  a  part  left  for  each  to  do — as  when  the 
kings  of  Israel  did  most  for  the  church,  still  there  was  ample  room 
for  the  children  of  Israel  to  manifest  their  liberality  in  behalf  of 
the  same  cause.  And  if  we  live  in  times  when  kings  and  govern- 
ments are  inclined  to  do  little,  this  just  leaves  us  all  the  more 
room,  and  lays  upon  us  a  greater  weight  of  obligation,  to  support 
and  extend  as  we  may  the  Christianity  of  the  world.  And  in- 
stead of  looking  only  to  the  principle,  let  us  look  also  to  the  effect, 
of  such  a  true  right  and  Christian  policy  on  our  parts  ;  and  we 
shall  find  it  far  the  likeliest  and  most  effectual  method  of  recalling 
to  their  duty,  those  who  for  a  time  may  seem  to  have  abandoned 
it.  In  proof  of  this,  we  bid  you  look  to  the  first  ages  of  Christi- 
anity, when  the  kings  of  the  earth  were  persecutors  ;  and  disci- 
ples had  to  fight  the  battles  of  the  faith,  not  only  unsupported  and 
alone,  but  were  resisted  even  to  the  blood — their  goods  spoiled, 
and  their  persons  given  up  to  martyrdom.  Innumerable  were 
the  calls  made  in  these  days  on  the  liberality  of  Christians,  for  the 
erection  of  churches,  for  the  entertainment  of  ministers,  and  for 
the  expense  of  those  missionary  journeys  by  which  they  leavened 
all  the  cities — though  they  did  not,  and  indeed  could  not,  not  even 
after  the  zeal  and  enterprise  of  three  centuries,  fill  up  all  the 
provinces  of  the  Roman  empire,  with  the  lessons  of  the  Gospel — ■ 
which,  in  the  retirements  and  fastnesses  of  the  country,  still  re- 
mained, down  to  the  reign  of  Constantine,  in  a  state  of  Paganism. 
And  how  were  these  calls  met  ?  Were  they  resisted  by  the  dis- 
ciples on  the  ground  that  the  maintenance  of  the  Gospel,  within 
the  territory  of  the  monarch  under  whom  they  lived,  formed  no 
part  of  their  concern  ?  Were  they  for  shifting  off  the  obligation 
from  themselves,  and  laying  it  upon  others  ?  Least  of  all,  were 
they  for  waiting  till  the  eyes  of  a  blind  and  hostile  government 
should  be  opened,  and  those  rulers  who  now  plundered  and  per- 
secuted the  churches  should  see  it  their  duty  to  uphold  them  ? 
They  did  not  leave  undone  the  work  of  expounding  the  duty  of 
governors.  They  reasoned,  and  they  remonstrated,  and  they  made 
every  attempt  to  enlighten  the  great  potentates  of  the  earth  on 


94 


CONSISTENCY    OF    THE 


the  merits  and  claims  of  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ — as  may  be 
seen  in  the  noble  apologies  which  have  come  down  to  our  times, 
addressed  by  the  venerable  fathers  of  the  Christian  Church  to  the 
emperors  of  Rome.  But  they  did  not  stop  here  ;  nor  were  they 
satisfied  with  simply  telling  the  duty  of  our  civil  and  earthly  su- 
periors. That  duty,  while  neglected  by  others,  they  took  upon 
themselves  ;  and  out  of  their  own  property,  as  far  as  it  survived 
the  confiscations  that  had  been  made  of  it  by  the  hand  of  power, 
did  they  plant  churches,  and  maintain  clergymen,  and  defray  the 
expenses  of  a  Christian  ministration  in  many  thousand  places  of 
the  empire.  Instead  of  waiting,  which  might  have  been  forever, 
till  all  this  was  done  by  the  Government,  they  took  it  up  at  their 
own  hands ;  and  this  proved  the  very  instrument  or  process,  by 
which  the  eyes  of  the  Government  were  opened,  and  their  resist- 
ance was  at  length  borne  down,  when,  after  the  commencement 
of  the  fourth  century,  the  lordly  autocrat  of  his  vast  dominions, 
gave  in  to  the  energy  of  the  public  sentiment ;  and,  whether  from 
motives  of  piety  and  principle  or  from  the  motive  of  policy  we 
know  not,  provided  an  entrance  for  the  teachers  of  the  Gospel  to 
every  little  district  of  the  then  civilized  world* — and  so,  bringing 
the  church  into  contact  with  the  plenteous  harvest  of  a  vineyard 
heretofore  too  mighty  for  its  grasp,  cleared  a  way  for  the  mes- 
sage of  the  Gospel  to  all  the  families  of  all  his  population. 

Now  what  was  the  process  then  should  be  the  process  still. 
In  the  first  ages  of  our  era,  the  church  had  no  aid  or  protection 
whatever  from  the  state ;  and  so  the  whole  territory  was  without 
the  blessings  of  any  legal  provision,  till  the  Christian  people  so 
multiplied  both  their  places  of  worship  and  their  worshippers, 
that  the  Government  at  length  was  carried,  and  Christianity  be- 
came the  established  religion  of  the  empire.  But  it  is  possible, 
nay  it  has  become  the  actual  condition  of  things  amongst  us,  that, 
from  the  increase  of  population,  the  original  establishment  of  the 
country  may  become  so  inadequate  to  the  number  of  our  families, 
that  nearly  half  the  territory  may  be  without  the  benefits  of  an 
establishment ;  and,  to  obtain  these  benefits,  the  Christians  of  the 
present  day,  may  have  to  do  for  this  half  of  the  territory,  what 
the  Christians  of  the  three  first  centuries  had  to  do  for  the  whole  of 
theirs.  Even,  however  friendly  the  Government  of  a  land  were 
to  such  an  enterprise,  it  is  the  whole  tenor  of  my  argument,  that 
this  ought  not  to  supersede  the  exertions  and  the  liberality  of  pri- 
vate Christians.  But  should  the  Government  not  be  friendly  to 
this  extension  of  the  church,  then  is  it  still  more  incumbent — as 
incumbent  in  fact  on  the  faithful  disciples  of  the  Saviour  now,  to 
do  the  same  for  the  waste  and  unprovided  places  of  the  land,  as 

*  Were  it  necessary  for  the  purposes  of  our  argument,  we  should  rather  say  that,  in 
strict  historical  precision,  only  a  beginning  of  this  work  was  made  by  Constantino;  and 
that  it  took  a  lengthened  period  of  time  to  (111  up  the  present  territorial  establishment  of 
Christendom. 


LEGAL    AND    VOLUNTARY    PRINCIPLES.  95 

of  old  the  disciples  did  for  the  vast  and  unfurnished  domain  that 
lay  before  them.  When  Christianity  at  its  outset,  went  forth  on 
the  then  unbroken  heathenism  of  the  Roman  empire,  the  voluntary 
system  was  put  into  operation  first;  and,  when  it  carried  the  Gov- 
ernment, the  legal  or  endowed  system  was  put  into  operation  after- 
wards. And  when  we  proceed,  not  against  an  entire  mass,  but 
against  numerous  and  scattered  portions  of  heathenism,  in  the  over- 
crowded towns  and  parishes  of  our  own  land — the  voluntary  now 
may  still  have  to  precede  the  legal,  even  as  it  did  then.  It  is 
therefore  most  wretchedly  preposterous,  when  application  is  made 
for  the  aid  of  private  Christians  in  this  enterprise  of  additional 
churches,  in  any  of  them  to  say,  we  shall  wait  to  know  what  the 
Government  does  before  we  do  anything.  This  is  neither  fair 
to  the  Government  nor  to  the  church,  for  the  Government  does 
not  lead,  but  follows  the  march  of  public  sentiment ;  and  grant 
that  it  is  reluctant,  or  not  enlightened  on  the  present  question,  the 
efforts  and  sacrifices  of  the  people  all  over  the  land,  constitute 
the  very  means  .by  which  to  enlighten  our  rulers — the  very  instru- 
ment by  which,  with  moral  compulsion,  their  reluctance  is  at  length 
done  away.  To  fetch  an  example  from  our  very  doors.  It  is  by 
the  generosity  of  private  Christians,  or  on  the  strength  of  their 
voluntary  subscriptions  alone,  that,  within  these  few  years,  one 
hundred  and  eighty  additional  churches  have  been  built  or  are  in 
process  of  erection  in  various  places  of  Scotland.  Thus  much 
for  the  contributions  of  the  one  party ;  but,  so  far  are  they  from 
superseding  or  being  exclusive  of  the  other  party,  they,  in  effect, 
form  one  hundred  and  eighty  arguments  for  that  aid  which  we 
seek  from  the  Government,  and  by  which  alone  these  places  of 
worship  can  be  made  fully  available  for  the  families  of  the  labor- 
ing classes  in  their  respective  neighborhoods.  In  a  little  time, 
there  will  be  the  voice  of  one  hundred  and  eighty  congregations, 
the  testimony  and  influence  of  one  hundred  and  eighty  neighbor- 
hoods all  bent  on  such  a  provision  from  the  state,  as  might  enable 
us,  not  to  sell  the  Gospel  as  now  for  those  golden  seat-rents  which 
are  so  shamefully  extorted,  and  can  only  be  paid  by  the  higher 
and  middling  classes — but,  if  possible,  to  preach  the  Gospel  to  our 
workmen,  our  artificers,  to  one  and  all  of  our  toil-worn  population, 
without  money  and  without  price.  The  case  is  becoming  more 
palpable  and  stronger  every  day,  and  must  at  length  prove  irre- 
sistible. We  have  only  to  multiply  these  erections ;  and  every 
new  fabric  will  be  a  new  stepping-stone,  which  shall  bring  us  so 
much  nearer  to  the  wished-for  consummation.  Instead  of  you 
waiting  for  the  Government,  why  it  is  all  the  other  way — the  Gov- 
ernment are  waiting  for  you.  It  is  clear  that  if  both  parties  wait, 
nothing  will  be  done.  And  therefore  it  is,  we  call  on  you  the  one 
party  to  do  your  part ;  and  this  is  the  high  way  to  insure  the 
other  party  doing  theirs.  The  united  efforts  of  private  Christians 
for  this  best  and  highest  interest  of  the  people,  will  at  length 


96 


CONSISTENCY    OF    THE 


gather  into  a  moral  force  which  can  be  withstood  no  longer — 
when,  not  without  your  contributions  on  the  oft-repeated  maxim 
that  Government  should  do  all ;  but  by  your  contributions,  or  on 
your  doing  something,  it  is  that  Government  will  do  the  rest :  Or, 
in  other  words,  it  is  through  the  medium  of  the  country  that  the 
Government  will  be  carried. 

We  should  not  have  detained  you  so  long  with  this  argument, 
had  it  not  admitted  of  the  strictest  application  to  the  object  of  our 
meeting  this  day.  There  could  not  be  a  wiser  or  more  patriotic 
act  in  any  Government,  than  to  institute  a  system  of  schooling, 
that  should  provide  a  sound  and  good  and  cheap  education  for  all 
the  families  of  the  land.  But  great  bodies  move  slowly  ;  and 
though  the  glaring  deficiency  of  schools,  more  especially  in  towns, 
has  been  expatiated  on  for  upwards  of  a  quarter  of  a  century — 
we  know  not,  if,  even  yet,  any  desirable  approximation  has  been 
made  towards  the  remedying  of  so  great  an  evil.  We  have  done 
nothing  by  our  reasonings ;  but  we  shall  have  done  a  great  deal, 
once  that  you  and  others  are  so  far  prevailed  upon,  that  you  shall 
begin  to  act.  Let  but  a  process  of  school  extension  be  entered  on, 
and  I  think  it  would  start  with  even  a  fairer  prospect  of  ultimate 
success,  than  did  the  process  of  Church  Extension  at  the  first — 
however  much  our  prospects  have  brightened  of  late,  by  the  gen- 
eral and  enthusiastic  support  which  our  scheme  has  met  with  in 
every  quarter  of  the  kingdom.  Now  in  several  places,  a  beginning 
of  this  sort  has  been  actually  made ;  nor  do  I  know  if  a  better 
parish  could  have  been  selected,  for  typifying  or  holding  forth  a 
good  miniature  exhibition  of  the  whole  argument,  than  that  one 
for  the  educational  interest  of  whose  young  I  now  stand  before 
you.  The  College  parish  contains  a  population  of  upwards  of 
four  thousand,  the  immense  majority  of  whom,  indeed  we  may 
almost  say  all,  are  of  the  common  people — or  of  that  class  in  so- 
ciety, whom  to  enlighten  and  to  elevate  and  every  way  to  better 
both  in  character  and  comfort,  and  more  especially  by  the  lessons 
of  the  Gospel,  were  the  very  highest  achievement  which  philan- 
thropy can  overtake,  and  the  noblest  boast  of  philanthropy  did 
she  succeed  in  the  undertaking.  Now  a  most  natural  question  is, 
how  much  would  be  necessary  fully  to  provide  for  the  schooling 
of  such  a  population.  It  is  greatly  beneath  the  common  estimate 
on  this  subject,  when  we  say  that  at  least  five  hundred,  out  of  four 
thousand,  should  be  at  all  times  under  the  process  of  their  elemen- 
tary education;  and  that  at  least  four  schools  would  be  required 
for  conducting  this  education,  in  a  complete  and  effective  manner. 
Were  we  living  in  the  days  of  John  Knox,  we  should  certainly 
have  contended  for  four  schools.  But  living  as  we  do  in  an  age 
when  private  luxury  is  carried  to  an  unexampled  height,  while  the 
most  wretched  parsimony  in  public  objects,  and  more  especially 
in  providing  for  those  national  institutes  which  might  best  sub- 
serve the  intelligence  and  virtue  of  the  people,  is  the  order  of  the 


LEGAL    AND    VOLUNTARY    PRINCIPLES.  97 

day — we  will  not  venture  to  specify  more  than  three  schools,  with 
the  respective  school-houses  and  district  teachers,  as  the  proper 
complement  for  such  a  parish.  Well  then,  as  there  has  been  yet 
no  legal  provision  for  this  necessity,  the  voluntary  principle  has 
put  forth  an  effort  and  done  something  for  the  cause.  And,  when 
compared  with  what  is  doing  in  other  places  and  other  parishes, 
it  has,  in  this  parish,  considering  the  almost  unexcepted  poverty 
of  the  great  mass  of  its  inhabitants,  done  nobly  and  well.  But  it 
is  truly  instructive  to  remark,  that,  though  the  exertion  made  here 
greatly  outruns  the  average  of  private  and  philanthropic  exertion 
all  over  Scotland,  still  it  is  greatly,  very  greatly  beneath  the  exi- 
gencies of  the  parish.  With  a  severe  struggle,  and  in  which  it 
has  been  found  impossible  altogether  to  escape  the  burden  of  an 
oppressive  arrear,  they  have  managed  to  keep  agoing  one  school, 
and  to  furnish  an  almost  gratuitous  education  to  about  a  hundred 
scholars — or,  in  other  words,  as  regards  the  number  of  schools, 
they  have  not  accomplished  one  third  ;  and,  as  regards  the  num- 
ber of  scholars,  not  one  fifth  of  what  would  be  required  to  support 
an  adequate  system  of  instruction  for  the  boyhood  of  this  parish. 
Even  for  but  one  school,  the  allowance  is  both  a  penurious  and  a 
precarious  one ;  and  while  there  is  a  general  conviction  among 
those  who  have  engaged  in  this  enterprise  of  benevolence,  that 
they  will  not  be  able  with  all  their  efforts  to  do  more — there  is 
even  a  well-founded  doubt,  whether  they  will  succeed  in  keeping 
the  ground  which  they  have  gotten,  or  continue  year  after  year 
to  do  as  much.  There  cannot  be  a  more  vivid  illustration  of*  the 
inadequacy  of  private  means,  and  of  the  indispensable  necessity 
for  a  public  and  legal  provision — ere  a  right  economy  for  educa- 
tion in  a  parish,  and  still  more  for  education  over  a  whole  country 
or  congeries  of  many  hundreds  of  parishes,  can  possibly  be  per- 
fected. 

But  though  the  voluntary  principle  falls  so  immeasurably  short 
of  the  completion  of  a  right  educational  economy,  it  does  admira- 
bly for  the  commencement  of  it.  Though  carried  to  its  utmost 
extent,  the  voluntary  system  will  never  overtake  what  the  endowed 
system  alone  is  equal  for ;  but  let  it  be  carried  to  this  extent,  and, 
as  forming  the  most  effectual  of  all  harbingers,  it  will  be  sure  to 
usher  in  the  endowed  system  at  the  last.  The  philanthropy  of 
the  citizens,  is  the  most  effectual  instrument  for  awakening  the 
patriotism  of  the  government ;  and  could  we  only  see  as  much 
done  by  every  congregation  in  our  large  towns  for  its  correspond- 
ing parish,  it  would  compose  such  a  weight  and  body  of  influence 
in  behalf  of  this  cause,  as  would  ultimately  be  felt  in  high  places  ; 
and  it  should  not  be  long,  ere  we  witnessed  the  espousal  of  it  by 
our  rulers,  who  at  last  would  bring  the  means  and  the  resources 
of  the  State  to  bear  upon  it.  It  is  well  that  the  voluntary  principle 
should  begin  the  cause;  but  it  will  not  end  the  cause.  It  may 
start  under  the  auspices  of  the  voluntary  svstem  ;  but  it  will  issue 

13 


98  CONSISTENCY    OF    THE 

in  the  establishment  of  the  endowed  system.  And  we  care  not 
from  what  quarter  the  endowment  comes.  We  rejoice  to  under- 
stand that  the  managers  of  one  of  the  great  public  charities  in  this 
city,  have  resolved  to  apply  a  large  portion  of  their  funds  to  the 
planting  of  schools  in  various  districts  within  the  royalty ;  and  it 
is  our  respectful  but  earnest  suggestion,  that  in  no  section  of  the 
territory,  will  they  meet  with  a  field  of  greater  promise,  and  at 
the  same  time  of  greater  necessity,  than  in  the  parish  attached  to 
this  church — or  a  fitter  scene  on  which  to  prove  the  wisdom,  as 
well  as  benevolence,  of  the  application  which  they  so  rightly  pro- 
pose to  make,  of  the  wealth  that  has  been  intrusted  to  their  charge. 
We  have  one  observation  more  to  make  on  this  subject,  and  we 
deem  it  an  important  one.  The  school  for  which  I  am  pleading 
is  a  scriptural  school,  in  the  character  and  system  of  the  good 
olden  time — where  the  Bible  and  the  Catechism  are  taught ;  and 
the  minds  of  the  children  are  brought  into  contact  with  those 
holy  principles  and  truths,  by  which  alone  they  can  be  made 
wise  unto  salvation.  We  trust  you  perceive  a  momentous  inter- 
est involved  in  the  support  and  multiplication,  not  merely  of 
schools,  but  of  such  schools.  If  there  be  any  soundness  in  our 
argument,  it  is  the  voluntary  system  which  germinates  the  endow- 
ment ;  and  they  are  the  schools  which  the  one  originates,  if  only 
raised  in  sufficient  number  and  with  a  sufficient  force  of  public 
opinion,  that  the  other  will  perpetuate  and  extend.  Let  these 
voluntary  schools  then  be  but  carried  far  enough ;  and  they  will 
not  only  give  birth  at  the  last  to  a  far  greater  progeny  of  endowed 
schools,  but,  what  is  of  capital  importance,  of  schools  in  their  own 
likeness :  And  upon  your  support  therefore  of  such  schools  as 
are  taught  scripturally  and  soundly,  it  depends,  whether  in  the 
days  of  your  posterity,  the  land  in  which  we  live  is  to  be  blessed 
with  a  right  and  a  religious,  in  one  word,  a  good  healthful  Protest- 
ant system  of  national  education.  To  revert  once  more  to  our 
analogous  example,  we  have  raised,  or  are  in  the  act  of  raising,  a 
hundred  and  eighty  new  churches,  and  are  making  it  at  the  same 
time  our  strenuous  endeavor  that  we  shall  obtain  an  endowment 
for  them  ;  and  not  this  only,  but  an  endowment  for  as  many 
more  as  might  supply  the  whole  ecclesiastical  destitution  of  the 
land.  Now  were  these  Catholic  or  Unitarian  churches,  such  a 
measure  might  have  operated  with  a  deadly  blight  on  the  spirit 
and  principle  of  future  generations  ;  and  it  serves  to  demonstrate 
the  prodigious  importance  of  an  extended  voluntary  support,  not 
for  churches  generally,  but  for  the  right  kind  of  churches — that 
on  this  the  alternative  hinges,  whether  a  pure  or  a  vicious  and 
corrupt  theology,  shall  emanate  from  the  great  mass  and  majority 
of  the  pulpits  in  our  land.  Now  what  is  true  of  the  kind  of 
churches,  is  as  true  of  the  kind  of  schools.  If  it  be  important  to 
anticipate  the  Government  with  a  right  kind  of  churches,  it  is 
also  important  to  anticipate  them  with  a  right  kind  of  schools. 


LEGAL    AND    VOLUNTARY    PRINCIPLES.  99 

Let  there  be  a  sufficient  rallying  around  these  two  great  objects, 
of  all  the  leal-hearted  and  well-principled  in  our  land  ;  and  we 
shall  make  sure  both  of  a  sound  Protestant  theology  in  our  pul- 
pits, and  of  a  sound  and  entire  Bible  education  in  all  our  parishes. 
The  national  system,  hereafter,  will  take  on  the  form  and  the 
character  which  individuals  now  may  choose  to  impress  on  it.  I 
stand  before  you  in  behalf  of  one  such  school,  having  this  guar- 
antee both  for  its  being  well  constituted  and  well  administered — 
that  it  is  conducted  under  the  immediate  eye,  the  governance 
and  guardianship  of  one  of  the  most  zealous  friends  to  the  pros- 
perity, and  ablest  champions  for  the  purity  of  the  Church  of  Scot- 
land. Let  but  this  school,  and  a  sufficient  number  around  it  in  its 
own  likeness,  be  upholden  for  a  few  years  amid  the  difficulties 
which  now  encompass  them  ;  and  we  have  every  reason  to  anti- 
cipate, that,  with  the  blessing  of  heaven,  the  whole  will  expand 
into  a  general  and  well-organized  system,  for  transmitting  the 
knowledge  of  the  pure  word  of  God  throughout  the  families  of  our 
people,  from  generation  to  generation. 


CONSIDERATIONS 


SYSTEM  OF  PAROCHIAL  SCHOOLS  IN  SCOTLAND, 

AND    ON   THE 

ADVANTAGE  OF  ESTABLISHING  THEM 

IN  LARCxE   TOWNS. 


There  are  three  school  systems  for  the  education  of  a  country, 
each  of  which  is  fitted  to  have  its  own  peculiar  influence  on  the 
general  habit  and  improvement  of  the  people  among  whom  it 
operates. 

There  is  first  the  wholly  unendowed  system.  Education,  in- 
stead of  being  in  any  shape  patronized  or  instituted,  may  be  left 
merely  as  an  article  of  native  and  spontaneous  demand,  among 
the  people  of  a  country.  Each  who  has  a  desire  for  it,  might,  in 
this  case,  purchase  it,  just  as  he  would  do  any  other  object  of  desire. 
He  would,  of  course,  have  to  nay  the  full  and  natural  price  for  the 
article :  or,  in  other  words,  the  fees  of  education  must,  under 
such  a  system,  be  adequate  to  the  entire  maintenance  of  the 
teachers. 

This  way  of  it  has  never  been  found  effectual  to  the  object  of 
originating,  in  any  country,  a  habit  of  general  education.  It  does 
not  call  out  the  people.  It  in  fact  abandons  them  to  the  chance 
of  their  making  a  proper  and  original  motion  of  their  own,  and  this 
motion  is  never  generally  made.  And,  had  we  time  for  looking 
so  far  back  as  to  first  causes,  the  reason  of  this  might  be  rendered 
abundantly  obvious.  The  truth  is,  that  there  is  a  very  wide  dis- 
tinction between  the  moral  or  intellectual  wants  of  our  nature,  on 
the  one  hand,  and  the  merely  physical  wants  of  our  nature  on  the 
other.  In  the  latter  case,  the  want  is  always  accompanied  with  a 
strong  and  urgent  desire  for  relief;  and,  just  in  proportion  to  the 
greatness  of  the  want,  is  the  intensity  of  the  desire.  The  want  of 
food  is  accompanied  with  hunger,  and  the  want  of  liquids  with 
thirst,  and  the  want  of  raiment  with  cold  ;  and  these  form  so  many 


PAROCHIAL  SCHOOLS  IN  SCOTLAND.  101 

powerful  appetites  of  demand,,  which,  among  a  people,  though  left 
to  themselves,  will  be  fully  commensurate  to  the  whole  extent  of 
their  physical  necessities.  And  hence  it  is,  that  whatever  call  may 
exist  for  a  national  establishment  of  teachers,  a  national  establish- 
ment of  bakers,  or  butchers,  or  tailors,  or  shoemakers,  is  altogether 
superfluous. 

But  the  reverse  of  all  this  holds  true,  of  the  moral  or  intellectual 
wants  of  our  nature.  The  want  of  virtue,  so  far  from  sharpening, 
has  the  effect  of  extinguishing  the  desire  for  virtue.  The  same  is 
true  of  the  want  of  knowledge.  The  more  destitute  we  are  of 
these  articles,  the  more  dead  we  are  as  to  any  inclination  for  them. 
Under  the  mere  operation  of  demand  and  supply,  there  are  suffi- 
cient guarantees  in  the  constitution  of  nature,  that  the  people  will 
themselves  make  a  primary  movement  after  food.  But  there  is 
no  such  guarantee  for  their  ever  making  a  primary  movement 
after  instruction.  It  is  not  from  the  quarter  of  ignorance,  that  we 
can  at  all  look  for  the  first  advance  towards  knowledge ;  nor  ca«a 
we  ever  expect,  that,  for  this  object,  a  people  as  yet  untaught,  will 
surrender,  either  for  their  own  behalf,  or  that  of  their  children, 
any  sensible  proportion  of  that  money,  which  went  to  the  purchase 
of  their  physical  gratifications. 

The  night  of  ignorance  is  sure  to  be  perpetuated  in  every  land, 
where  no  extraneous  attempts  are  made,  on  the  part  of  the  wealthy 
and  enlightened,  for  the  object  of  its  dissipation.  And  if  the  wholly 
unendowed  system  be  incompetent  to  the  effect  of  planting  a  habit 
of  education  among  a  people,  in  the  first  instance,  it  cannot  be  the 
best  system  for  upholding  that  habit,  where  it  is  already  estab- 
lished; and  far  less  can  it  be  the  best  for  arresting  the  declension 
of  this  habit  in  a  country,  where,  if  education  be  upon  the  decline, 
the  desire  for  education  will  be  sure  to  decline  along  with  it. 

The  next  system  of  education,  is  that  of  free  schools.  It  is  in 
every  point  diametrically  the  reverse  of  the  former,  and  may  there- 
fore at  first  view  be  regarded  as  the  best  for  shunning  all  the  evils, 
and  all  the  inefficiency  of  the  former.  It  is  a  wholly  endowed, 
instead  of  a  wholly  unendowed  system.  It  both  spares  the  popu- 
lation the  necessity  of  making  the  first  movement  after  scholarship 
for  their  children,  and  it  spares  them  the  necessity  of  surrendering 
for  this  object  any  portion  of  their  subsistence.  For  the  comple- 
tion of  such  a  system,  it  were  enough  that  schools  and  school- 
houses  should  be  built  in  every  little  district  of  the  land,  and  such 
a  salary  provided  for  the  teachers,  as,  without  the  exaction  of  any 
fee,  would  enable  them  to  render  a  full  supply  of  scholarship  to 
the  families,  at  the  public  expense.  In  this  way,  the  people  would 
be  fully  met  with  an  apparatus,  broadly  and  visibly  obtruded  upon 
their  notice  ;  and  yet  we  are  far  from  thinking,  that  it  would  either 
create  a  native  and  universal  habit  of  education  in  a  country, — or 
arrest  the  process  of  its  degradation  in  learning, — or  sustain  the 
practice  of  parents  sending  their  children  to  school,  and  so  stimu- 


102  ON    THE    SYSTEM    OF 

lating  and  watching  over  the  progress  of  their  scholarship,  as  would 
lead  to  the  formation  of  a  well-taught  and  a  well-informed  peas- 
antry. 

What  is  gotten  for  no  value,  is  rated  at  no  value.  What  may 
be  obtained  without  cost  in  money,  is  often  counted  unworthy  of 
any  cost  in  pains.  What  parents  do  not  pay  for  the  acquirement 
of,  children  will  not  be  so  urged  to  toil  for  the  acquirement  of.  To 
be  away  from  school,  or  to  be  idle  at  school,  when  not  a  matter 
of  pecuniary  loss,  will  far  more  readily  be  a  matter  of  connivance. 
There  is  no  doubt  a  loss  of  other  advantages ;  but  these,  under  a 
loose  and  gratuitous  system  of  education,  will  be  but  held  in  ca- 
pricious demand,  and  in  slender  estimation.  The  only  way  of 
thoroughly  incorporating  the  education  of  the  young,  with  the 
habit  of  families,  is  to  make  it  form  part  of  the  family  expen- 
diture, and  thus  to  make  the  interest,  and  the  watchfulness,  and 
the  jealousy  of  parents,  so  many  guarantees  for  the  diligence  of 
their  children.  And,  for  these  reasons,  do  we  hold  the  establish- 
ment of  free  schools  in  a  country,  to  be  a  frail  and  impolitic  ex- 
pedient, for  the  object  of  either  upholding  a  high  tone  of  scholar- 
ship among  our  laboring  classes,  or  of  rendering  the  habit  at  all 
general,  or  of  perpetuating  that  habit  from  generation  to  genera- 
tion. 

And  such  a  system  has  not  a  more  adverse  influence  on  the 
scholars,  than  it  has  upon  the  teachers.  Let  a  man  deal  in  any 
article  whatever,  and  there  is  not  a  more  effective  security  for  the 
good  quality  of  what  he  deals  in,  than  the  control  and  the  guar- 
dianship of  his  own  customers.  The  teacher  of  a  free  school  is 
under  no  such  dependence.  It  is  true,  that  he  may  be  paid  ac- 
cording to  the  proficiency  of  the  learners  ;  but  the  parent  who  can 
instantly  withdraw  his  children,  is  a  far  more  jealous  inquisitor 
mto  this  matter,  than  the  official  examinator,  on  whose  personal 
interest  at  least  there  is  no  such  powerful  or  effectual  a  hold. 
And  we  repeat  it,  therefore,  that  carelessness  on  the  part  of  the 
teacher,  as  well  as  a  remiss  and  partial  attendance  on  the  part  of 
the  taught,  is  the  likely  fruit  of  that  gratuitious  system  of  educa- 
tion, the  aspect  and  the  tendency  of  which  we  are  now  employed 
in  contemplating. 

It  reflects  infinite  credit  on  the  founders  of  our  Scottish  ref- 
ormation, that,  by  the  tact  of  a  wise  and  well-discerning  skilful- 
ness,  they  have  devised  a  system,  which  dexterously  shuns  and 
puts  at  an  equal  distance  from  our  peasantry,  the  evils  and  incon- 
veniences of  the  two  former.  It  may,  for  the  sake  of  distinction, 
6e  called  the  medium  system  of  education.  It  is  about  two  cen- 
turies and  a  half  ago  since  it  had  its  origin  in  Scotland.  The  first 
advance  was  made,  not  by  the  people  at  large,  but  by  the  found- 
ers of  this  system  ;  and  in  this  way,  they  escaped  the  inefficiency 
of  what  may  be  called  the  unendowed  method  of  education.  They 
built  schools  and  school-houses,  and  held  them  conspicuously  forth 


PAROCHIAL    SCHOOLS    IN    SCOTLAND.  103 

to  the  view  of  the  population,  and  they  furnished  such  a  salary  to 
the  teacher,  as  enabled  him,  not  to  deal  out  a  free  education  among 
the  surrounding  families,  but  to  deal  it  out  to  them  upon  certain 
regular  and  moderate  allowances.  In  this  way,  they  escaped  the 
evils  which  we  have  just  now  ascribed  to  the  gratuitous  system 
of  education.  The  people  were  not  fully  met.  But  they  were 
met  half-way.  It  was  not  a  movement  of  demand  upon  their  side, 
in  the  first  instance,  which  it  had  been  vain  to  look  for.  Neither 
was  it  a  full  and  altogether  gratuitous  invitation  on  the  other  side. 
But  it  was  the'movement  of  a  proposal  from  the  latter,  upon  cer- 
tain terms ;  and  this  was  at  length  followed  up,  on  the  side  of  the 
people,  by  the  movement  of  a  wide,  and  general,  and  almost  un- 
excepted  compliance. 

This  result  has  nobly  accredited  the  wisdom  of  our  parochial 
institutions.  The  common  people  of  England  and  Ireland,  left  to 
demand  education  for  themselves,  never  demanded  it ;  nor  would 
they,  if  left  to  the  impulse  of  their  own  desire,  ever  have  emerged 
from  the  deep,  and  stationary,  and  unalleviated  ignorance  of  the 
middle  ages.  A  great,  and,  in  part,  a  successful  effort,  is  .making 
now,  in  behalf  of  both  these  countries,  by  a  set  of  active  philan- 
thropic societies.  By  the  stir  and  the  strenuousness  of  these  in- 
stitutions, the  people  have  certainly,  in  some  measure,  awakened 
from  the  stillness  of  their  unlettered  repose  ;  and  many  young  have 
been  called  out  to  scholarship,  who  else  would  have  persisted  in 
the  dormancy  of  their  forefathers.  Still  we  hold,  that  there  is  no 
security  for  a  system,  either  of  universal  or  perpetual  operation, 
until  it  shall  cease  to  be  entirely  gratuitous — until  the  people 
themselves  be  associated  in  the  support  of  it  by  their  own  pay- 
ments— until  they  are  led  to  look  on  scholarship  as  worthy  of  its 
price,  and  that  price  is  actually  rendered — until  learning  be  so 
prized  by  them  as  to  be  purchased  by  them — and  this  bond  be 
established  for  its  regular  prosecution  among  all  their  families,  that 
its  cost  is  estimated  among  the  regular  outgoings  of  a  family. 

This  is  the  way  in  the  country  parishes  of  Scotland.  The  sur- 
render which  they  have  to  make  for  the  education  of  their  young, 
is  much  smaller  than  it  would  have  been,  had  there  been  no  school, 
or  school-house,  or  salary,  provided  by  the  legislature.  Still,  how- 
ever, it  is  well  that  they  have  to  make  some  surrender.  It  is  well 
that  the  care  of  parents  over  the  progress  of  their  children's  edu- 
cation, should  be  stimulated  by  the  price  which  they  have  to  ren- 
der for  it.  It  is  well,  that  by  their  inspection  being  thus  sharp- 
ened, there  should  be  a  far  closer  and  more  effective  security  for 
the  diligence  of  the  young,  than  ever  could  obtain,  were  the  edu- 
cation of  the  country  turned  into  one  great  and  universal  charity. 
We  read  much  of  the  abuses  of  chartered  and  endowed  schools 
for  the  poor ;  and  it  is  well  that  while  our  schools  are  so  far  en- 
dowed as  to  reduce  the  country  price  of  learning  to  at  least  one- 
half  of  what  it  would  be,  under  a  totally  unprovided  system  ;  it  is 


104  ON    THE    SYSTEM    OF 

still  well,  that  a  fraction  should  be  left  to  be  paid  by  the  parents, 
and  that  the  teacher  should  be  thus  far  responsible  to  them,  for 
the  performance  of  his  duty  and  the  faithfulness  of  his  public 
services. 

The  universality  of  the  habit  of  education  in  our  Lowland  par- 
ishes, is  certainly  a  very  striking  fact ;  nor  do  we  think  that  the 
mere  lowness  of  the  price  forms  the  whole  explanation  of  it. 
There  is  more  than  may  appear  at  first  sight,  in  the  very  circum- 
stance of  a  marked  and  separate  edifice,  standing  visibly  out  to 
the  eye  of  the  people,  with  it's  familiar  and  oft-repeated  designa- 
tion. There  is  also  much  in  the  constant  residence  of  a  teacher, 
moving  through  the  people  of  his  locality,  and  of  recognized  office, 
and  distinction  amongst  them.  And  perhaps  there  is  most  of  all 
in  the  tie  which  binds  the  locality  itself  to  the  parochial  seminary, 
that  has  long  stood  as  the  place  of  repair,  for  the  successive  young 
belonging  to  the  parish ;  for  it  is  thus  that  one  family  borrows  its 
practice  from  another — and  the  example  spreads  from  house  to 
house,  till  it  embrace  the  whole  of  the  assigned  neighborhood — 
and  the  act  of  sending  their  children  to  the  school,  passes  at  length 
into  one  of  the  tacit,  but  well  understood  proprieties  of  the  vicin- 
age— and  new  families  just  fall,  as  if  by  infection,  into  the  habit 
of  the  old  ones — so  as,  in  fact,  to  give  a  kind  of  firm,  mechanical 
certainty  to  the  operation  of  a  habit,  from  which  it  were  violence 
and  singularity  to  depart — and  in  virtue  of  which,  education  has 
acquired  a  universality  in  Scotland,  which  is  unknown  in  the  other 
countries  of  the  world. 

There  has  many  a  distinct  attempt  been  made  to  supplement 
the  defective  education  of  our  cities.  But  if  it  have  either  been 
in  the  way  of  gratuitous  education,  or  in  the  way  of  a  vast  Lan- 
casterian  establishment,  for  the  general  behoof  of  a  wide  and 
scattered  community,  or  in  any  way  which  did  not  bind,  by  the 
tie  of  a  local  relationship,  the  close  and  contiguous  families  of  a 
given  district,  to  a  seminary  raised  within  its  limits,  and  to  a  fixed 
and  stationary  teacher  at  the  head  of  that  seminary — then  let  it 
be  remembered,  that  some  of  the  most  essential  elements  of  suc- 
cess have  been  wanting  to  the  operation.  Nor  let  us  be  discour- 
aged by  the  failure  of  former  expedients,  which  are  not  at  all 
analogous  to  the  one  that  we  shall  venture  to  recommend,  and  by 
which  it  is  proposed  to  circulate  throughout  the  mass  of  a  crowded 
population,  ;is  powerful  and  pervading  an  influence,  in  behalf  oi 
scholarship,  as  that  which  has  been  diffused  over  the  face  of  our 
Lowland  provinces, and  diffused  so  thoroughly, as  scarcely  to  leave 
in  our  country  parishes,  the  exception  of  a  singb  individual,  or  a 
single  family  behind  it. 

But  there  is  still  another  school  system  which  falls  to  be  con- 
sidered— not  a  medium,  but  what  may  rather  be  called  a  com- 
pound system — because  made  up  of  the  unendowed  and  the  free 
systems  together,  though  not  put  together  into  the  constitution  of 


PAROCHIAL    SCHOOLS    IN    SCOTLAND.  105 

any  one  single  seminary.  This  compound  system  is  realized  in 
all  those  places  where  so  many  of  the  schools  are  wholly  free,  and 
all  the  rest  of  them  are  wholly  unendowed.  We  have  already 
stated  our  objections  against  such  an  establishment  of  free  schools 
as  would  meet  the  whole  population.  It  is  a  different  arrange- 
ment from  this,  where  there  is  such  an  establishment  of  free 
schools  as  might  provide  part  of  the  population  with  gratuitous 
learning,  and  where  the  remaining  part  have  to  pay  that  full 
price  which  obtains  in  schools  that  are  totally  unendowed.  This 
amounts  nearly  to  the  actual  system  which  obtains  in  Glasgow. 

Our  objections  to  this  way  of  ordering  the  matter,  are,  that  as 
far  as  free  education  prevails,  a  careless  estimate  of  its  value,  and 
a  loose  and  negligent  attendance,  are  apt  to  prevail  along  with  it ; 
and  that  many  parents,  who,  under  the  medium  system,  could 
have  upheld  the  habit  of  purchasing  the  scholarship  of  their  chil- 
dren, are  thereby  degraded  into  an  inferior  habit ;  and  that  there 
is  not  a  more  public  way  of  exposing  our  people  as  the  subjects  of 
charity,  than  by  drawing  out  their  families  to  a  charity  school ;  and 
that  the  difference  to  the  comfort  of  a  family  is  so  great,  between 
having  to  pay  the  full  price  which  an  unendowed  teacher  must 
exact,  and  having  to  pay  no  price  at  all,  as  to  make  a  place  in  one 
of  the  charity  schools  an  object  to  men,  who  else  would  be  greatly 
above  cherishing  any  expectation  of  charity,  or  preferring  any 
demand  for  it ;  and  that,  as  the  result  of  all  this,  the  competition 
for  places  is  so  great,  as  often  to  elbow  out  those  neediest  and 
most  destitute,  for  whom  the  institution  was  originally  framed — 
besides  the  incalculable  mischief  of  brin<nn£  down  men,  who.  but 
for  this  temptation,  would  have  stood  erect  and  independent,  to 
the  attitude  of  petitioners  ;  or,  in  other  words,  the  mischief  of 
carrying  the  spirit  and  the  desires  of  pauperism  upward,  by  sev- 
eral steps,  along  the  scale  of  society. 

We  affirm  one  consequence  of  charity  schools  with  us,  to  have 
been  a  diminution  in  the  quantity  of  education.  It  is  familiar 
to  us  all,  that  the  applications  for  admittance  are  greatly  more 
numerous  than  the  vacancies.  In  this  way  there  are  many  parents 
who  are  constantly  standing  out  in  the  capacity  of  expectants, 
and  who,  under  the  operation  of  a  hope  which  turns  out  to  be 
delusive,  are  keeping  off  their  children  from  other  schools.  Their 
children  are  thus  suffered  to  outgrow  their  opportunities ;  and 
many  are  the  instances  in  which  they  have  stood  for  years  at  that 
gate  to  which  they  have  been  allured  by  false  or  mistaken  signals 
of  invitation,  till  the  urgent  concerns  of  their  trade  or  their  pro- 
fession at  length  hurried  them  away — and  that  too,  to  a  condition 
of  life,  where  it  was  as  impossible  for  them  to  retrieve  any  portion 
of  their  time  for  the  purposes  of  education,  as  it  was  to  recall 
those  years  which  they  had  so  idly  spent  in  ill-directed  endeavors 
to  obtain  it. 

In  all  these  circumstances,  we  hold  the  medium  system,  which 

14 


106  ON    THE    SYSTEM    OF 

obtains  in  the  country  parishes  of  Scotland,  to  be  also,  in  every 
way,  the  best  for  its  city  parishes.  Not  leaving  education  with- 
out any  endowment,  to  the  random  operation  of  demand  and  sup- 
ply— not  so  endowing  it,  as  to  hold  out  a  gratuitous  education  to 
all  who  should  require  it — not  even  endowing  a  restricted  number 
of  schools  to  this  extent,  and  leaving  the  rest  to  the  necessity  of 
exacting  an  unendowed  price  from  the  scholars  who  repair  to  them 
— but  endowing  schools  so  far  as  will  enable  the  teachers  to  fur- 
nish education  to  our  town  families  upon  country  prices — erecting 
the  schools  and  the  school-houses — and  multiplying  these  erections 
till  they  met  the  demand,  and  were  thoroughly  familiarized  to  the 
habit  of  our  whole  population. 

It  is  little  known  amongst  us,  how  much  the  people  of  our  city 
parishes  have  fallen  behind  the  full  influence  and  benefit  of  such 
a  system.  With  the  exception  of  schools  for  Latin,  there  are  al- 
most no  vestiges  of  any  such  endowment.  Instead  of  any  public 
and  parochial  edifice  for  scholarship,  held  forth  to  the  view  of  the 
people,  and  constantly  reminding  them,  as  it  were,  of  their  duty, 
through  the  avenue  of  the  senses, — the  only  education  for  their 
children,  which  is  accessible  to  them,  is  dealt  out  from  the  privacy 
of  obscure  garrets,  or  at  most  from  the  single  hired  apartment  of 
a  house,  in  no  way  signalized  by  its  official  destination,  and  deeply 
retired  from  observation  amid  the  closeness  and  frequency  of  the 
poorest  dwelling-places.  These  stations,  too,  whither  children 
repair  for  their  education,  are  constantly  shifting ;  and  the  teach- 
ers, being  often  unconnected  by  any  ties  of  residence  or  local 
vicinity  writh  the  parents,  there  is  positively,  in  spite  of  the  sacred- 
ness  of  their  mutual  trust,  as  little  of  the  feeling  of  any  moral 
relationship  between  them,  as  there  is  between  an  ordinary  shop- 
keeper and  his  customers.  The  very  circumstance,  too,  of  draw- 
ing his  scholars  from  the  widely  scattered  families  of  a  town,  in- 
stead of  drawing  them  from  the  contiguous  families  of  one  of  its 
parishes,  slackens,  among  these  parishes,  the  operation  of  that 
principle,  which  operates  so  powerfully  among  the  immediate 
neighbors  of  a  small  country  village  ;  and  where,  in  virtue  of  each 
doing  as  he  sees  others  do,  we  behold  so  sure  and  so  unfailing  a 
currency  towards  the  established  schoolmaster,  on  the  part  of  all 
the  population.  It  forms  a  mighty  addition  to  all  these  obstacles, 
in  the  way  of  education,  when  such  a  price  must  be  paid  for  it, 
as  might  enable  the  teacher  to  live  on  his  fees  alone.  And  thus 
it  is,  that  the  demand  for  schooling,  which  is  kept  up  without 
abatement  in  our  country  parishes,  has  been  most  wofully 
abridged  amongst  the  laboring  classes  in  our  towns.  Not  a  few 
feel  tempted,  by  the  greatness  of  its  expense,  to  evade  the  school- 
ing of  their  families  altogether,  insomuch,  that  with  them  the 
cause  of  education  is  altogether  extinct ;  and  very  many  are  the 
parents  who  feel  tempted  to  reduce  the  quantity  of  schooling,  in- 


PAROCHIAL    SCHOOLS    IN    SCOTLAND.  107 

somuch,  that  with  them  the  cause  of  education  is  rapidly  and 
alarmingly  on  the  decline. 

It  is  a  very  low  estimate  of  the  average  expense  of  good  edu- 
cation for  reading,  alone,  to  state  it  at  five  shillings  a  quarter,  or 
twenty  shillings  a  year.  This  expense  is,  in  many  instances, 
shunned  altogether :  and  there  are  hundreds  of  adults  who  are 
utterly  incapable  of  reading  ;  and  the  number  of  these  is  increas- 
ing rapidly.  The  expense  is,  in  many  more  instances,  not  shun- 
ned :  but  the  period  of  it  is  lamentably  shortened,  so  as  fully  to 
account  for  the  slovenly  and  imperfect  reading  of  so  many  of  our 
artizans,  and  laborers,  and  household  servants.  The  case  of  these 
last  is,  that  of  ignorance  under  the  disguise  of  education.  Theirs 
is  a  mere  semblance  or  apology  for  learning.  The  individual 
who,  in  reading  to  another,  stops,  and  spells,  and  blunders  at 
every  short  interval,  can  never  read  a  passage  to  himself,  so  as 
readily  to  understand  the  subject.  To  read  intelligently,  he  must 
read  fluently.  And,  therefore  it  is,  that  there  may  be  a  partial 
scholarship,  which,  for  every  purpose  of  moral  or  literary  im- 
provement, is  just  as  worthless  as  no  scholarship  at  all.  The 
shadow  of  the  good  old  Scottish  habit  may  be  still  perpetuated 
amongst  us  for  one  or  two  generations ;  and,  perhaps,  may  be 
preserved,  by  the  annual  importations  of  this  habit  from  the  coun- 
try, from  ever  passing  into  utter  dissipation.  But,  though  the 
shadow  of  it  should  remain,  the  substance  of  it  will  soon  be  dissi- 
pated. Insomuch,  that,  if  vice  and  ignorance  stand  together  in 
nearly  perpetual  association — if  an  uneducated  people  be  more 
formidable  in  their  discontent,  and  more  loathsome  in  their  profli- 
gacy, and  more  improvident  in  their  economical  habits,  and  more 
hardened  in  all  the  ways  of  wickedness  and  impious  profanation, 
than  a  people  possessed  of  the  Bible,  and  capable  of  using  it — 
then,  we  cannot  look  on  the  progress  of  that  undoubted  decay  in 
scholarship,  which  is  every  day  becoming  more  conspicuous  in 
our  towns,  without  inferring  a  commensurate  progress  in  those 
various  elements  of- mischief,  which  go  to  feed  and  to  augment  all 
our  moral  and  all  our  political  disorders. 

To  extend  a  right  system  of  parochial  education  over  the 
whole  city,  is  an  enterprise  greatly  too  gigantic  for  any  one  body 
of  management.  The  truth  is,  that,  did  we  compute  the  expense 
of  its  full  accomplishment,  the  magnitude  of  the  sum  would  para- 
lyze any  number  of  philanthropists  who  could  willingly  and  readily 
act  together,  for  the  purpose  of  bringing  round  such  a  consum- 
mation. From  the  vastness  of  the  necessary  resources  on  the 
one  hand,  and  the  unwieldiness  which  ever  attaches  to  the  move- 
ments of  any  very  extended  society,  on  the  other,  we  are  quite 
sure  that  nothing  very  effectual  could  be  done  under  a  combined 
plan  of  operations,  and  that  the  agents  of  such  an  undertaking, 
would  either  give  it  up  in  despair,  or  retire  from  it,  satisfied  that 
they  had  done  much,  when  they  had  scarcely  done  anything — 


108  ON    THE    SYSTEM    OF 

pointing,  it  may  be,  to  some  showy,  but  superficial  achievement, 
as  the  trophy  of  their  success, — to  the  establishment,  it  is  likely, 
of  one  school  in  each  parish,  which  would  only  suffice  for  a  very 
small  fraction  of  the  whole,  and  leave  untouched  and  unprovided 
by  any  salutary  influence  whatever,  the  great  mass  of  the  com- 
munity. 

But  what  one  body  of  management  cannot  do  in  the  gross, 
several  distinct  and  independent  bodies  of  management  might  be 
able  to  do  in  the  detail.  One  thing  is  certain,  that  any  such 
smaller  body  will  act  with  an  impetus  and  a  vigor,  of  which  a 
vast  general  society  is  utterly  incapable.  This  would  be  the  first 
effect  of  a  subdivision  in  the  field  of  agency.  Let  it  only  be 
broken  down  into  manageable  sections,  and  the  influence  will  be 
the  same  with  that  which  comes  upon  a  man's  whole  energy  and 
spirit,  when  any  concern  with  which  he  is  associated,  is  so  re- 
duced, from  the  hopelessly  and  impracticably  vast,  as  to  be 
brought  within  the  compass  of  his  probable  attainment;  and  when 
the  limit  of  his  enterprise,  instead  of  lying  at  a  distance  from  him, 
in  the  remote  and  fathomless  unknown,  is  brought  so  near,  as  to 
be  distinctly  visible,  and  likely  to  be  overtaken  ;  and  when,  by 
every  step  in  his  progress,  he  feels  himself  to  be  approximating  to 
a  given  termination.  In  such  a  state  of  things,  he  is  cheered  and 
stimulated  onwards  by  every  new  accession  to  his  means,  and 
every  new  movement  in  the  execution  of  his  measures ;  and  just 
because  the  conclusion  of  the  whole  does  not  stand  at  an  obscure 
and  indefinite  interval  away  from  him.  And  such  would  be  the 
difference,  in  point  both  of  present  alacrity  and  ultimate  success, 
between  the  operations  of  one  Society  for  parochial  schools,  to  the 
whole  of  Glasgow,  and  of  distinct  Societies  for  the  same  object,  in 
each  of  the  parishes  of  Glasgow.  Each  would  have  its  own 
manageable  task  ;  and  each  would  be  freed  from  the  distractions 
of  too  manifold  and  cumbersome  an  operation ;  and  each  would 
not  only  have  less  to  do,  but  have  more  in  proportion  to  do  with  : 
for,  it  is  of  importance  to  remark,  that,  by  thus  dividing  the 
mighty  field,  and  assigning  its  own  separate  locality  to  each  sepa- 
rate agency,  the  interest  is  greatly  heightened,  and  the  activity  is 
greatly  promoted ;  and  even  the  feeling  of  rivalship  gives  a  laud- 
able impulse  to  each  of  the  distinct  undertakings  ;  and  the  solicita- 
tions for  aid  are  carried  through  each  parish  and  congregation, 
far  more  closely  and  productively,  when  the  attention  and  desire 
are  thus  devoted  to  one  small  portion  of  the  territory,  instead  of 
being  weakened  by  dispersion  over  the  face  of  the  extended 
whole. 

It  is  on  these  grounds,  that  the  Committee  of  Education  for  the 
parish  of  St.  John,  have  conceived  the  hope,  that,  by  intent  per- 
severance, and  the  use  of  all  those  legitimate  means  which  are 
within  their  reach,  they  may  at  length  succeed  in  the  establish- 
ment of  a  right  parochial  apparatus ;    or,  in  other  words,  may 


PAROCHIAL  SCHOOLS  IN  SCOTLAND.  109 

arrive  at  the  result  of  as  many  schools  and  school-houses,  with 
permanent  salaries  to  each  of  the  teachers,  as  shall  be  commensu- 
rate to  the  object  of  a  good  elementary  education,  at  reduced 
prices,  to  all  the  families  in  the  parish. 

This  will  be  gradually  arrived  at,  by  the  erection  of  successive 
fabrics,  and  the  accumulation  of  as  much  capital,  as  shall  afford, 
by  its  interest,  the  salaries  of  the  different  teachers. 

Each  fabric,  it  is  conceived,  may  have  two  school-rooms  in  its 
lower  story,  and,  in  its  upper  stories,  the  two  school-houses. 
When  the  schools  cease  to  be  filled  to  an  overflow,  this  will  serve 
as  an  indication  that  the  parochial  equipment  for  schooling  is 
completed. 

We  should  feel  it  a  public  injustice  to  monopolize  for  our  parish, 
more  in  the  way  of  aid  than  legitimately  belongs  to  it ;  and  we 
hold  it  necessary,  on  this  account,  to  explain,  how  far  we  mean  to 
extend  our  solicitations,  and  what  are  the  resources  which  we 
leave  untouched  for  other  parishes. 

All  who  are  connected  with  the  parish,  either  by  residence  or 
by  property,  we  count  ourselves  free  to  apply  to,  for  such  contri- 
butions as  they  may  be  prevailed  upon  to  render,  in  behalf  of 
this  strictly  parochial  object ;  nor  do  we  deem  this  in  any  way 
capable  of  being  construed  into  an  interference  with  the  claims 
and  the  fair  expectations  of  other  parishes. 

But,  further,  it  must  be  evident,  that  did  each  parish  of  Glasgow 
confine  its  attempts  to  obtain  money,  within  the  limits  which  we 
have  just  now  assigned,  the  most  needful  of  these  parishes  would 
also  be  the  most  restricted  in  their  means  of  raising  a  right  paro- 
chial system.  And,  on  the  other  hand,  the  great  majority  of  our 
wealthiest  individuals,  residing  either  in  the  best  provided  districts 
of  the  town,  or  without  the  limits  of  the  royalty  altogether,  would 
escape  the  pressure,  or  rather  what  most  of  them  would  hold  to 
be  the  privilege,  of  sharing  in  this  dispensation  of  liberality.  There 
are  many  such,  whom  the  poorer  of  our  parishes  may  look  up  to, 
as  a  kind  of  common  patrons,  and  whose  wealth  may  be  regarded 
as  a  common  fund,  out  of  which  it  is  fair  to  draw,  in  the  way  of 
candid  statement,  and  respectful  entreaty,  as  much  as  can  be 
gained  from  their  good-will,  for  this  best  of  objects.  And  while 
we  abstain  from  encroaching,  by  more  than  our  fair  share,  upon 
this  wide  and  flourishing  domain  of  our  community,  do  we  leave 
it  to  other  parishes  to  enter  upon  it  as  they  please,  and  to  culti- 
vate it  in  any  way  they  will,  and  to  call  forth  its  produce  and  its 
capabilities  to  the  uttermost. 

What  we  fear  not  to  announce  as  our  equitable  share  of  this 
fund,  is  just  as  much  as  we  can  possibly  raise,  by  means  of  a  con- 
gregational subscription,  as  additional  to,  and  distinct  from,  our 
parochial  ones  ;  or,  in  other  words,  it  is  our  intention  to  solicit  aid 
from  those  who,  without  residence  or  property  in  the  parish,  have 
nevertheless  seats  in  the  church  of  St.  John. 


110  ON    THE    .SYSTEM    OF 

Our  firm  and  confident  answer  to  every  charge  of  unfair  usurpa- 
tion, on  the  means  of  general  Glasgow,  for  the  furtherance  of  an 
object  connected  with  the  peculiar  good  of  only  one  of  its  parishes, 
is,  that  ours  is  among  the  poorest  of  the  city  parishes,  and  ours  is 
not  the  wealthiest  of  the  city  congregations. 

Should  there  be  another  parish  poorer  than  ours,  and  with  a 
congregation  not  so  wealthy,  we  do  not  ask  it  to  restrict  its  opera- 
tions for  aid,  within  the  limits  which  we  have  prescribed  for  our- 
selves. After  it  has  made  the  most  of  its  parish  and  congregation, 
it  will  have  a  still  untrodden  field,  among  those  most  affluent  of 
our  citizens,  who  have  no  peculiar  connection  with  either,  but 
who,  in  extending  their  patronage  to  the  schooling  of  an  unpro- 
vided district  of  the  town,  will  find  an  ample  scope  for  one  of  the 
most  promising  and  productive  of  all  charities. 

On  this  field,  the  Committee  for  Education  in  the  parish  of  St. 
John,  do  not  propose  to  enter.  Insomuch,  that  if  a  wealthy  in- 
dividual, not  a  parishoner,  not  a  proprietor,  and  not  a  sitter  in  the 
church  of  St.  John,  should  offer  ten  guineas  for  the  furtherance 
of  our  undertaking,  wre  honestly  affirm,  that  it  were  in  far  more 
delightful  harmony  with  all  our  wishes,  did  he  reserve  his  money, 
and  augment  it  to  the  gift  of  a  hundred  guineas,  in  behalf  of  an- 
other district,  still  more  needy  and  unprovided  than  our  own. 
Nor  would  we  feel  such  interest  and  alacrity  in  this  our  parochial 
undertaking,  did  we  not  believe,  that  the  plan  Was  equally  com- 
petent, and  equally  effective,  for  all  the  other  parishes  of  Glasgow  ; 
and  that  it  thus  admitted  of  being  so  multiplied  and  transferred  to 
the  other  districts  both  of  our  city  and  suburb  population,  as  to 
offer  by  far  the  likeliest  method  of  rearing  a  permanent  security 
for  the  good  and  Christian  education  of  all  our  families. 

It  is  in  the  power  of  any  munificent  individual  to  bring  this 
matter  to  the  test,  so  as  to  ascertain,  in  a  few  months,  whether  the 
charm  which  we  have  ascribed  to  locality,  be  of  an  ideal,  or  of  a 
soundly  experimental  character.  We  do  not  suppose  him  to  be 
either  a  sitter  in  the  church  of  St.  John,  or  at  all  connected,  either 
by  residence  or  property,  with  the  parish.  Let  him  dwell  with- 
out the  limits  of  the  royalty,  and  have  no  congregational  bond  of 
alliance  with  any  part  of  the  city,  excepting,  perhaps  the  very 
wealthiest  of  its  districts.  Should  he,  in  these  circumstances,  se- 
lect the  most  destitute  of  its  parishes,  as  his  own  chosen  field,  on 
which  he  might  lavish  all  his  influence,  and  all  his  liberality — 
should  he,  for  this  purpose,  head  an  enterprise  for  schools,  by  his 
own  princely  donation ;  and  interest  his  personal  friends ;  and 
encourage  by  his  example  and  exertions,  any  parochial  committee 
that  may  be  formed  ;  and  spirit  on  the  undertaking  to  the  erection 
of  one  fabric,  and  to  a  fresh  exertion  for  another,  and  to  the  an- 
ticipation for  a  third,  he  will  soon  feel,  how  much  more  effective 
a  hold  of  him,  such  a  plan  of  operations  for  ten  thousand  people 
has,  than  a  similar  plan  for  one  hundred  thousand.     He  will  thus 


PAROCHIAL  SCHOOLS  IN  SCOTLAND.  Ill 

try  the  comparison  of  strength,  between  a  local  and  a  universal 
interest,  and  find  how  greatly  the  former,  by  the  constitution  of 
our  nature,  predominates ;  and  how,  by  concentrating  his  atten- 
tions upon  one  district,  his  whole  heart  and  endeavor  are  far  more 
rivited  to  the  cause  of  its  moral  cultivation,  than  if  he  had  merged 
himself  among  the  generalities  of  a  wider,  but  more  hopeless  un- 
dertaking. He  will,  after  having  planted  the  cause  in  this  his 
adopted,  and,  on  that  very  account,  his  favorite  and  beloved  vine- 
yard, continue  to  water  it,  just  because  he  had  planted  it ;  nor  will  he 
feel  it  possible  to  cease  from  fostering  his  own  parochial  establish- 
ment, till  he  had  brought  it  on  to  its  full-grown  maturity.  All 
the  members  of  that  body  of  subscription  with  which  he  is  asso- 
ciated, will  just  feel  as  he  does ;  and  the  very  same  local  interest, 
which  does  so  much  to  stimulate  the  activity  of  the  doer,  will  also 
stimulate,  beyond  all  calculation,  the  liberality  of  the  giver.  The 
cause  will  be  nobly  seconded  in  the  parish  itself,  which  is  the  field 
of  this  operation  ;  and  its  contribution  for  its  own  schools,  will  ex- 
ceed, by  many  times,  any  contribution  to  which  it  could  possibly 
be  called  out,  for  the  more  extended,  but,  to  it,  greatly  less  ex- 
citing cause  of  schools  in  Glasgow.  This  is  not  philanthropy 
bounding  herself  round  with  narrow  and  unsocial  limitations.  It 
is  philanthropy  devising  the  way  in  which  the  greatest  amount  of 
good  may  be  rendered  to  our  species ;  and,  for  this  purpose,  avail- 
ing herself  of  a  principle,  which,  however  neglected  and  lying  in 
unobserved  concealment  heretofore,  will,  we  trust,  be  mightily 
instrumental  in  calling  forth  a  great  resurrection  of  all  that  is  wise, 
and  moral,  and  salutary  in  our  land.  Let  one  set  of  men  foster 
the  attentions  and  reiterate  the  labors  of  benevolence  upon  one 
assigned  and  overtakeable  district.  Let  our  great  towns  be  local- 
ized into  separate  portions,  and  men  be  called  out,  for  thoroughly 
pervading  each  of  them,  and  laboriously  doing  in  detail,  what  has 
long  been  so  vainly  and  ambitiously  attempted  en  masse.  Let 
each  separate  agency  link  itself  with  a  subject,  that  there  is  some 
hope  of  completely  finishing,  and  thus  suit  the  dimensions  of  the 
enterprise  to  the  real  mediocrity  of  human  power ;  then,  in  this 
humbler,  but  sounder  way  of  it,  a  universal  result  will  be  far  more 
surely  and  speedily  obtained,  than  it  ever  can  be  by  the  airy,  un- 
productive magnificence,  as  impotent  as  it  is  imposing,  of  widely 
comprehending  plans,  and  great  national  undertakings. 

We  have  one  remark  to  offer,  for  the  purpose  of  acquitting  our- 
selves in  full  of  the  imputation  of  monopoly.  There  are  many 
sitters  in  the  church  of  St.  John's,  who  have  also  seats  elsewhere. 
We  shall  apply  to  them  for  aid  in  our  parochial  undertaking.  But 
we  beg  to  assure  them,  that,  instead  of  their  entire  offering  to  the 
cause,  it  would  be  far  more  consonant  both  to  our  views  of  jus- 
tice, and  to  our  desire  of  extending  this  benefit  beyond  the  limit 
of  our  own  parish,  if  we  were  only  admitted  to  a  proportional 
share  of  their  liberality. 


112 


ON    THE    SYSTEM    OF 


The  extra-parochial  sitters  in  the  church  of  St.  John's  will  for- 
give the  following  observation.  They  are  not  parishioners ;  but 
thej7  occupy  the  place  of  parishioners.  They  get  the  Sabbath  ac- 
commodation, which,  but  for  them,  parishioners  would  have  got- 
ten ;  and  we  assure  them,  that,  by  helping  on  the  cause  of  week- 
day instruction  in  the  parish,  they  will  make  the  kindest  and  most 
suitable  atonement  for  such  a  deprivation. 

To  have  a  sufficient  conception  of  the  style  in  which  the  cause 
that  we  are  now  pleading  for,  deserves  to  be  supported,  it  should 
be  considered,  how  much  there  is  to  be  done,  and  how  great  the 
benefit  is,  that  will  accrue  from  the  doing  of  it.  Ever  since  the 
first  institution  of  schools  in  Scotland,  towns  have  grown,  and  the 
provision  for  education  has  not  grown  along  with  them.  The 
population  greatly  outstrips  the  endowed  schools,  and  the  object 
now  is,  to  establish  as  many  schools  as  shall  overtake  the  popula- 
tion. Thus,  to  recover  the  distance  we  have  lost — thus,  to  repair 
the  negligence  of  upwards  of  two  centuries — thus,  to  do,  in  a  few 
years,  the  work  which  should  have  been  gradually  advancing 
along  the  lapse  of  several  generations — may  well  appear  an  enter- 
prise so  vast,  as  to  border  on  the  romantic  ;  and  it  is  not  to  be  dis- 
guised, that  it  is  only  on  the  strength  of  large  sums  and  large  sacri- 
fices, that  we  can  at  all  look  for  its  entire  and  speedy  accomplish- 
ment. And  yet  we  will  not  despair  of  this  cause,  when  we  think 
of  its  many  recommendations  ;  and  that,  with  all  its  cost,  it  would 
still  form  the  best  and  the  cheapest  defence  of  our  nation,  against 
the  misrule  of  the  fiercer  and  more  untoward  passions  of  our  nature ; 
and  that  the  true  secret  for  managing  a  people,  is  not  so  much  to 
curb,  as  to  enlighten  them ;  and  that  a  moral  is  a  far  mightier  opera- 
tion than  a  physical  force,  in  controlling  the  elements  of  political 
disorder ;  and  that  to  give  a  certainty  to  the  habit  of  education  in 
towns,  is  to  do  for  them  that  which  has  visibly  raised  the  whole 
peasantry  of  Scotland,  both  in  intelligence  and  virtue,  above  the 
level  of  any  other  population. 

There  is  one  encouraging  circumstance  in  this  charity.  It  is 
not,  like  many  others,  interminable.  An  assignable  sum  of  money 
will  suffice  for  it,  and  suffice  for  it  conclusively.  Every  mite  of 
contribution,  brings  it  nearer  to  its  fulfilment.  When  schools  and 
school-houses  are  built,  and  salaries  are  provided,  and  a  sum  is 
raised  for  the  calculable  object  of  repairing  our  edifices,  or  of  so 
extending  them,  as  to  meet  the  growing  exigencies  of  a  growing 
population,  the  undertaking  is  done,  and  the  parish,  permanently 
translated  into  the  condition  of  a  country  parish,  as  it  regards 
schools,  is  upheld  in  a  high  tone  of  scholarship,  throughout  all  its 
succeeding  generations. 

Under  such  a  system  as  has  now  been  proposed,  the  efforts  of 
respectable  and  well-taught  men,  may,  in  the  capacity  of  teachers, 
be  brought  to  bear  on  the  very  humblest  classes  of  society. 
Linked  with  the  parish,  by  the  ties  both  of  residence  and  of  office, 


PAROCHIAL  SCHOOLS  IN  SCOTLAND.  113 

they  might  bring  a  mighty  contribution  of  good  to  its  moral 
agency.  They  would  occupy  what  at  present  is  an  unfilled  gap 
between  the  higher  and  the  lower  orders ;  fitted  for  intercourse 
with  the  former,  and  familiarized  to  the  latter,  both  by  local  and 
official  relationship.  Let  them  have  an  honest  zeal  on  the  side  of 
Christianity;  and  the  effect  of  their  frequent  and  extensive  ming- 
lings  with  the  people,  would  be  beyond  the  reach  of  our  present 
calculation.  Those  apparently  outcast  and  outlandish  features, 
which  have  had  such  time  to  grow,  and  to  gather,  and  to  settle 
into  obstinacy,  on  the  aspect  of  a  neglected  race,  would  soften 
and  give  way  under  the  influences  of  this  blander  and  better  ar- 
rangement. It  would  do  more  than  reclaim  a  parish  ; — it  would 
go  far  to  domesticate  it.  Nor  do  we  know  how  a  readier  method 
could  be  devised  for  consolidating  the  parochial  system  of  our 
great  cities,  or  for  supplementing,  till  better  and  more  liberal  days, 
those  woful  deficiencies  which  obtain  in  our  ecclesiastical  estab- 
lishment. 

There  are  many  gentlemen  of  our  city,  familiar  with  the  spec- 
tacle of  a  public  examination  at  our  grammar-school ;  and  who 
have  frequently  enjoyed  the  gratifying  assemblage  of  parents,  and 
children,  and  spectators,  all  occupied  with  their  respective  in- 
terests, in  this  busy  scene  of  emulation  and  display ;  and  who  have 
witnessed,  with  benevolent  pleasure,  the  honest  pride  of  fathers, 
and  the  keen  rivalship  which  obtains  among  the  most  eminent  of 
the  young,  and  the  expression  of  holiday-delight  which  sits  on  the 
countenances  of  them  all ;  and  who  must  be  sensible,  that,  during 
the  mixture  of  public  with  domestic  feeling,  in  this  little  republic, 
where  no  other  supremacy  is  owned,  but  that  of  proficiency  and 
talent,  the  differences  of  rank,  and  the  asperities  of  the  great  world, 
are  for  a  season  forgotten.  How  far  this  may  contribute  to  soften 
and  humanize  the  system  of  human  life  out  of  doors,  it  were  diffi- 
cult to  say.  But  certainly,  there  is  nothing  that  we  should  desire 
more  to  see,  than  a  parent,  among  the  very  humblest  of  our  work- 
men, sharing,  at  periodic  intervals,  in  this  very  exhibition — com- 
ing, in  his  Sabbath  attire,  to  witness  the  proficiency  of  his  children, 
on  the  day,  and  in  the  hall  of  their  annual  examination, — meeting 
there,  with  all  that  is  respectable  and  virtuous  in  the  parish,  as- 
sembled to  do  homage  to  the  cherished  cause  of  education  among 
its  families — mingling  with  parents  of  the  higher  orders,  even  as 
their  children  mingle,  and  sharing  along  with  them  in  the  same 
delightful  interests,  and  in  the  same  pure  and  pacific  triumphs — 
soothed  and  elevated,  even  by  this  transient  intercourse  with  the 
people  of  another  rank,  and  another  place  in  the  scale  of  society — 
and  at  length  retiring  from  the  spectacle,  with  a  heart  more  linked 
to  the  general  system  of  the  country;  and  that,  because  this 
country  has  attached  him,  by  those  very  ties  which  bind  him  to 
his  own  offspring,  and  to  the  sacred  cause  of  their  moral  and  re- 
ligious cultivation. 

15 


114    ON  THE  SYSTEM  OF  PAROCHIAL  SCHOOLS  IN  SCOTLAND. 

There  cannot  be  a  fitter  occasion  than  the  present,  for  vindica- 
ting the  wealthier,  and  for  soothing  and  reconciling  the  poorer 
classes  of  society.  The  latter  very  generally  think  of  the  former, 
that  they  bear  a  haughty  indifference  to  all  their  concerns.  In 
this  they  are  mistaken.  The  rich  are  not  only  willing,  but  many 
of  them  are  earnestly  and  enthusiastically  so,  to  forward  the  in- 
terests of  the  poor,  if  they  but  knew  how  to  do  it ;  and  we  trust, 
that,  in  a  cause  so  undeniable  as  the  present,  they  will  nobly  re- 
deem, by  the  generosity  of  their  contributions,  all  the  discredit 
which  has  been  so  plentifully  cast  upon  them.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  rich  often  think  of  the  poor,  that  kindness  corrupts  them  into  a 
habit  of  art  and  ingratitude.  But  in  this  they,  too,  are  mistaken. 
Such  a  kindness  as  we  are  now  pleading  for,  carries  not  one  sin- 
gle element  of  corruption  along  with  it.  It  helps  the  poor,  with- 
out degrading  them.  The  charity  which  humbles  a  man,  never 
makes  him  grateful.  But  this  is  not  such  a  charity.  The  erec- 
tion of  schools,  where  education  is  so  cheap,  that  the  poor  will 
count  it  no  hardship  to  pay,  and  where  education  is  so  good,  that 
the  rich  will  find  it  of  no  hurt  to  their  children  to  send,  does  not 
bear  upon  it  any  of  the  signals  of  charity.  The  benefit  of  such 
an  institution,  is  felt  for  ages  after  its  origin  is  forgotten :  and  it 
will  be  the  feeling  of  the  people,  not  that  they  are  brought  nearer 
by  it  to  a  condition  of  pauperism — but  simply,  that,  by  being 
translated  into  the  same  facilities,  in  respect  of  education,  with  our 
country  parishes,  they  have  been  admitted  to  the  share  which  be- 
longs to  them,  in  the  common  privileges  of  our  nation. 


ON  THE 

TECHNICAL  NOMENCLATURE  OF  THEOLOGY; 

BEING  THE 

SUBSTANCE  OF  AN  ARGUMENT 

CONTRIBUTED   TO 

"THE  CHRISTIAN  INSTRUCTOR" 

IN  1813. 


Thougii  faith  be  the  main  and  radical  principle  of  our  religion, 
yet  there  are  many  of  those  Christians  in  whose  speculations  it 
bears  a  most  prominent  part,  who  incidentally  betray  a  very  glar- 
ing deficiency  in  the  feeling  and  practice  of  faith.  What  we 
have  in  our  eye,  is  that  mingled  sentiment  of  fear  and  aversion, 
with  which  they  listen,  even  to  the  opinions  that  are  evangelical, 
and  substantially  their  own,  when  they  come  to  them  couched  in 
a  phraseology  different  from  what  their  ears  have  been  accus- 
tomed to.  They  must  have  something  more  than  the  bare  and 
essential  attributes  of  orthodoxy.  Even  orthodoxy  is  not  wel- 
come, unless  she  presents  herself  in  that  dress  in  which  she  is 
familiar  to  them  ;  and  if  there  be  the  slightest  innovation  in  the 
form  of  that  vehicle  which  brings  her  to  their  doors,  she  is  refused 
admittance,  or  at  the  best  treated  as  a  very  suspicious  visitor. 
Now,  in  all  this,  we  think  we  can  perceive  a  want  of  those  two 
very  things,  which  they  often  insist  upon,  and  with  great  justice, 
as  the  leading  attributes  of  a  true  and  decided  Christian  ; — there 
is  a  want  of  faith,  and  a  want  of  spirituality.  We  do  not  see 
how  any  variation  in  the  external  sign  should  painfully  affect  that 
mind,  which  has  taken  a  firm  hold  of  the  thing  signified.  We  do 
not  see  how  the  mechanical  circumstances  of  phrase  and  expres- 
sion should  discompose  that  spirit,  which  maintains  a  direct  inter- 
course with  the  Son  of  God,  by  confidence  in  Him  as  a  real  and 
living  personage.  We  do  not  see  how  a  reflecting  Christian,  with 
the  realities  of  faith  in  immediate  contemplation  before  him,  can 
shrink  in  suspicion  or  disgust  from  these  realities,  when  presented 


116  TECHNICAL    NOMENCLATURE    OF    THEOLOGY. 

to  him  in  language  equally  expressive  and  significant,  but  differ- 
ent from  that  which  the  usage  of  favorite  authors  has  rendered 
familiar  to  him.  It  fills  us  with  the  painful  suspicion,  that  there  is 
little  of  the  vitality  of  right  sentiment  in  his  mind,  when  he  refuses 
it,  though  offered  to  him  through  the  medium  of  language,  as  clear, 
as  appropriate,  and  if  he  would  only  exercise  his  attention,  as  in- 
telligible as  that  to  which  he  has  been  habituated.  We  begin  to 
fear,  that  all  the  charm  of  orthodoxy  to  him,  is  a  voice  falling 
upon  his  ear  like  a  pleasant  song ;  that  the  inner  man  has  no  share 
in  it ;  that  the  Saviour,  who,  if  present  to  the  heart,  can  support 
it  against  the  substantial  terrors  of  death  and  of  judgment,  is 
surely  not  present,  when  this  heart,  instead  of  being  filled  with 
the  spirit  of  power  and  of  a  sound  mind,  resigns  itself  to  the  most 
fearful  and  squeamish  anxieties  about  words  and  phrases,  and 
other  unessentials,  which  form  no  real  or  necessary  part  of  the 
kingdom  of  God. 

This  timidity  operates  upon  writers,  as  well  as  upon  readers  ; 
and  it  has  had  an  undoubted  effect  in  keeping  back  the  style  of 
theological  authors.  This  is  one  reason  why  the  theological  style 
is  so  stationary.  There  can  be  no  doubt  as  to  the  fact,  that,  with 
very  few  exceptions,  the  phraseology  of  our  divines,  and  in  par- 
ticular of  those  termed  evangelical,  is  below  the  elegant  and  cul- 
tivated phraseology  of  writers  upon  other  subjects.  The  effect 
of  this  is  undeniable.  Men  of  tasteful  and  cultivated  literature, 
are  repelled  from  theology  at  the  very  outset,  by  the  unseemly 
garb  in  which  she  is  presented  to  them.  Now,  if  there  be  nothing 
in  the  subject  itself  which  necessarily  leads  to  any  uncouth  or 
slovenly  exhibition  of  it,  why  should  such  an  exhibition  of  it  be 
persisted  in  ?  If  there  be  room  for  the  display  of  eloquence  in 
urgent  and  pathetic  exhortation,  in  masterly  discussion,  in  ele- 
vating greatness  of  conception ;  does  not  theology  embrace  all 
these  1  and  will  not  the  language  that  is  clearly  and  appropriately 
expressive  of  them,  possess  many  of  the  constituents  and  varieties 
of  good  writing  ?  If  theology,  then,  can  command  such  an  ad- 
vantage, on  what  principle  should  it  be  kept  back  from  her  ?  Why 
must  she  be  debarred  from  the  use  of  an  instrument,  by  which 
she  can  bring  a  whole  class  of  men  to  a  hearing,  and  compel  their 
respectful  attention?  Is  not  the  principle  of  all  things  to  all- 
men  abandoned,  when  the  partialities  of  men  of  taste  are  not  ad- 
verted to  ?  Is  it  not  right  that  the  fishers  of  men  should  accom- 
modate their  bait  to  the  prize  that  they  are  aiming  at  ?  Is  it  not 
right  that  every  man  should  be  addressed  in  his  own  language  ? 
It  was  for  this  very  purpose,  that,  in  the  first  age  of  the  church, 
God  interposed  with  a  miracle,  and  that  the  first  teachers  of  the 
Gospel  were  endowed  with  the  gift  of  tongues.  It  is  true,  that  the 
style  of  theologians  is  not  absolutely  unintelligible  to  the  men  I 
am  alluding  to.  In  reference  to  the  tasteful  and  literary  classes 
of  society,  the  theological  style  can  scarcely  be  called  a  different 


TECHNICAL    NOMENCLATURE    OF    THEOLOGY.  117 

tongue.  It  may,  however,  be  called  a  different  dialect ;  and  if  that 
dialect  were  translated  into  their  own,  it  would,  at  least,  be  more 
clearly  understood,  and  more  patiently  attended  to.  Is  not 'the 
principle  upon  which  a  miraculous  endowment  was  granted  to  the 
first  Christians,  of  speaking  to  every  man  in  his  own  tongue  the 
wonderful  works  of  God,  the  very  same  with  the  principle  upon 
which  the  lessons  of  theology  should  be  translated  into  all  lan- 
guages ?  Is  it  not  just  following  out  this  principle,  to  translate  the 
lessons  of  theology  into  the  various  modifications  of  the  same 
language  ?  Would  it  not  be  preposterous,  to  bring  in  the  dialect 
of  Yorkshire  upon  the  parish  churches  of  Fife  or  of  Caithness  ? 
Then  it  is  equally  so  to  address  men  habituated  to  the  language 
of  general  literature,  in  a  style  tainted  with  all  the  obsolete  pecu- 
liarities of  a  former  age,  and  disfigured  by  all  the  uncouthness  of 
a  professional  dialect. 

It  will  be  seen  therefore,  that  we  are  far,  and  very  far  from 
contending  for  a  general  abandonment  of  the  present  style.  The 
principle  of  all  things  to  all  men,  will  provide  for  its  continuance, 
so  long  as  there  is  a  public  in  existence,  to  relish,  and  be  improved 
by  it.  We  are  convinced,  that  for  many  years  to  come,  the 
great  majority  of  theological  books  will  and  ought  to  be  written 
in  it.  And  as  our  Saviour  said,  "  the  poor  ye  have  always  with 
you  ;"  so  His  Gospel  will  ever  retain  this  distinctive  attribute,  that, 
"  to  the  poor,  it  is  preached."  The  average  style  of  theology  will 
accommodate  itself  to  the  general  demand  ;  and  we  shall  be  as 
loud  as  any  of  our  readers,  in  protesting  against  the  injustice  of 
starving  the  majority,  for  the  sake  of  the  fastidious  or  the  culti- 
vated few.  It  does  not  follow,  because  we  wish  one  translation 
more  to  be  made  into  the  dialect  of  general  literature  ;  that  all 
the  previous  translations  of  theology,  into  the  dialects  of  plain 
sense,  of  homely  reflection,  of  forcible  and  impressive  declama- 
tion, (even  though  it  should  be  vulgar,  and  untasteful,  and  fitted 
only  to  impress  people  in  the  lower  circles  of  society,)  should 
therefore  be  destroyed.  We  do  not  want  to  debar  the  majority 
of  the  species  from  the  province  of  religious  instruction.  All 
that  we  contend  for,  is  an  act  of  justice  to  the  minority  ;  that  their 
peculiar  taste  should  come  in  for  its  share  of  attention  ;  that  books 
should  be  written  for  them  also  ;  that  proselytes  to  the  good  cause 
should  be  attempted  from  every  quarter  of  society  ;  that  no  de- 
partment of  human  life  should  be  left  untried  ;  that  if  a  single 
human  soul  can  be  reclaimed  by  the  translation  which  we  are  now 
demanding,  the  translation  ought  to  be  made  ;  and  that  the  fear- 
fulness  which  prevents  an  author  from  giving  it,  or  disposes  a 
reader  to  receive  it  with  resentment  or  dislike,  is  a  sentiment 
which  bears  unfavorably  upon  the  interests  of  the  Christian 
religion. 

But  where  lies  the  precise  efficacy  of  such  a  translation  ?    Will 
it  accomplish  a  victory  over  the  natual  enmity  of  the  mind  to  the 


118  TECHNICAL    NOMENCLATURE    OF    THEOLOGY. 

things  of  the  Spirit  of  God  ?  Or.  will  the  enticing  words  of  man's 
wisdom  be  able  to  effect  that,  which  we  are  taught  to  believe  can 
only  be  accomplished  by  the  demonstration  of  the  Spirit  and  of 
power  ? 

We  believe,  that  repugnance  to  the  peculiar  doctrines  of  Chris- 
tianity lies  a  great  deal  deeper  than  disgust  at  the  common  phrase- 
ology in  which  they  are  rendered  ;  and  we  therefore  do  not  think, 
that  the  translation  of  them  into  the  tasteful  and  cultivated  phrase- 
ology of  literary  men,  will  operate  as  a  specific  for  carrying  these 
men  out  of  darkness  into  the  marvellous  light  of  the  Gospel.  We 
must  distinguish  here,  betwixt  the  agent  and  the  instrument.  The 
translation  of  the  Bible  into  a  new  language  is  only  an  instrument. 
The  Spirit  of  God  may,  and  actually  does,  refuse  His  agency  to 
this  instrument  in  a  variety  of  individual  cases  ;  but  this  is  no  rea- 
son for  keeping  the  instrument  back.  It  does  not  hinder  us  from 
counting  every  translation  into  a  new  language  to  be  a  service  to 
the  cause,  ft  does  not,  of  itself,  carry  a  saving  influence  into  the 
minds  of  all  who  read  it ;  but  it  is  an  established  instrument  by 
which  the  Spirit  worketh ;  and  as,  in  point  of  fact,  it.  is  the  mean 
of  saving  some,  it  is  most  desirable  that  such  a  translation  should 
be  made.  Now,  what  is  true  of  a  new  language,  is  true  of  a  new 
dialect.  We  do  not  detract  from  the  agency  of  the  Spirit  by  a 
translation  into  either  of  them ;  and  the  merits  of  the  translation 
proposed  by  us,  stand  precisely  on  the  same  ground  with  the 
merits  of  the  Bible  Society,  and  can  be  vindicated  on  the  same 
principles  with  the  beneficent  operations  of  that  noble  institution. 
Let  theology,  therefore,  accomplish  the  translation  of  its  reason- 
ings and  its  exhortations  into  the  dialect  of  taste.  She  may  not 
reclaim  to  the  truth  all  who  make  use  of  this  dialect,  but  she  does 
a  great  deal  if,  by  means  of  this  translation,  she  reclaims  any  of 
them ;  and  we  contend,  that  the  worth  of  a  single  human  soul  de- 
mands the  experiment  to  be  made. 

The  case  may  be  farther  illustrated  in  this  way:  We  do  not 
say,  that  "going  to  church  is  an  infallible  specific  for  conversion; 
but  we  say,  that  it  adds  to  the  chance  of  it;  and  if  the  rich  people 
of  the  parish  are  kept  back  from  church  by  the  badness  of  the 
road,  or  the  scantiness  of  the  accommodation,  then  it  were  desir- 
able that  these  should  be  amended,  and  that  more  souls  should  be 
brought  within  the  reach  of  an  established  instrument  for  turning 
them  to  the  truth.  We  do  believe,  that  the  alienation  of  these 
people  from  vital  Christianity,  lies  a  great  deal  deeper  than  their 
dislike  at  a  miry  road  or  a  clay  floor.  It  is  not  the  removal  of 
these  that  can  remove  the  alienation, — but  they  lie  in  the  way 
of  an  established  instrument ;  they  prevent  the  application  of 
the  word  and  of  hearing.  Bring  them  fairly  within  the  reach  of 
this  application,  and  that  word  of  God,  which  is  quick  and  power- 
ful, and  sharper  than  a  two-edged  sword,  may  reach  the  disease, 
deep  as  it  is,  and  may  eradicate  it. 


TECHNICAL    NOMENCLATURE    OF    THEOLOGY.  119 

The  main  obstacle  to  the  reception  of  Christian  truth,  does  not 
lie  in  the  repugnance  we  feel  to  the  phraseology  in  which  she  is 
conveyed  to  us.  It  is  seated  far  deeper,  and  lies  in  an  attribute 
of  our  fallen  nature  which  is  diffused  universally  among  all  the 
individuals  of  the  species,  the  tasteful  as  well  as  the  untasteful : 
It  lies  in  the  enmity  of  the  carnal  mind  against  God ;  and  to  sub- 
due that  enmity,  a  mightier  element  must  be  brought  to  bear  upon 
the  human  soul  than  all  the  powers  of  eloquence  or  poetry.  The 
mere  removal  of  the  present  phraseology  cannot  do  it ;  neither 
can  repairing  the  road  to  church,  or  filling  it  with  decorations, 
convert  the  soul  of  a  single  parishioner.  Neither  expedient  would 
effect  what  is  the  exclusive  office  of  the  Spirit  of  God ;  but,  by 
putting  both  expedients  into  practice,  you  secure  a  larger  attend- 
ance upon  the  word, — you  give  it  the  benefit  of  a  hearing, — and 
you  bring  into  operation  the  instruments  by  which  the  Spirit 
worketh;  Rom.  x.  17.  By  pleading,  then,  for  the  translation  of 
theology  into  a  style  as  cultivated,  and  as  much  accommodated  to 
men  of  general  literature,  as  that  which  is  employed  on  other 
subjects,  we  only  extend  the  operation  of  the  instruments.  The 
agency  of  the  Spirit  of  God,  and  the  great  steps  of  the  process  by 
which  a  human  soul  is  called  out  of  darkness  into  the  marvellous 
light  of  the  Gospel,  are  left  on  precisely  the  same  scriptural  footing 
as  before ;  and  we  must  do  the  profound  and  eloquent  author  of 
the  work  before  us  the  justice  to  say,  that  no  Christian  writer 
whom  we  have  yet  met  with,  appears  to  stand  more  decidedly  on 
the  ground  of  Christianity  in  its  most  peculiar  and  evangelical 
form.* 

But  it  is  high  time  to  introduce  him  to  the  notice  of  our  readers. 
We  confine  our  attention  to  his  fourth  Essay,  entitled,  "On  the 
Conversion  of  Men  of  Taste  to  Evangelical  Religion."  But  the 
term  "evangelical"  requires  explanation,  and  we  give  it  in  the 
author's  own  words. 

"  Christianity,  taken  in  this  view,  contains  a  humiliating  estimate  of  the 
moral  condition  of  man,  as  a  being  radically  corrupt :  the  doctrine  of  redemp- 
tion from  that  condition  by  the  merit  and  sufferings  of  Christ :  the  doctrine  of 
a  divine  influence  being  necessary  to  transform  the  character  of  the  mind,  in 
order  to  prepare  it  for  a  higher  station  in  the  universe  :  and  a  grand  moral  pe- 
culiarity, by  which  it  insists  on  humility,  penitence,  and  a  separation  from  the 
spirit  and  habits  of  the  world.  I  do  not  see  any  necessity  for  a  more  formal 
and  amplified  description  of  that  mode  of  understanding  Christianity,  which 
has  assumed  the  distinctive  epithet  Evangelical,  and  which  is  not,  to  say  the 
least,  more  discriminately  designated  among  the  scoffing  part  of  the  wits,  critics, 
and  theologians  of  the  day,  by  the  terms  Fanatical,  Calvinistical,  and  Metho- 
distical." 

A  discussion  may  be  so  far  condensed  as  to  admit  of  no  farther 
condensation ;  and  it  is  this  which  constitutes  the  difficulty  of  re- 
viewing the  Essay  before  us.     It  is  too  rich  in  profound,  and  judi- 

*  The  work  reviewed  was  Foster's  Essays. 


120  TECHNICAL    NOMENCLATURE    OF    THEOLOGY. 

cious,  and  original  reflection,  for  us  to  attempt  a  complete  outline 
of  it.  Under  this  impression,  we  pass  over  a  great  number  of 
Mr.  Foster's  remarks,  as  to  the  vulgarity  or  barbarism  of  the  pre- 
vailing theological  style,  and  the  causes  which  may  be  assigned 
for  it.  One  of  these  causes  is  obvious  to  all.  While  other  sub- 
jects in  science  and  literature  are  exclusively  taken  up  by  the 
accomplished,  and  dignified  by  all  their  powers  of  conception  and 
phraseology,  it  forms  the  distinction  of  Christianity,  that  it  is  most 
expressly  sent  to  the  class  which  philosophers  have  despised.  The 
effect  is  undeniable,  whether  you  conceive  the  writers  to  belong 
to  that  class,  or  to  write  for  it.  There  will,  in  either  case,  be  an 
accommodation  to  their  taste  ;  and  the  prevailing  style  of  theo- 
logical books  will  sink  down  to  a  humble  and  illiterate  standard. 
There  is  another  cause  scarcely  noticed  by  the  author,  which  has 
the  effect  of  perpetuating  this  style,  even  in  spite  of  the  accessions 
which  evangelical  religion  may  receive  from  the  polished  classes 
of  societv.  When  a  man  of  high  literary  accomplishment  is  called 
out  of  darkness,  he  becomes  the  subject  of  an  influence  too  strong 
to  be  counteracted  by  the  antipathies  of  taste  ;  and,  in  the  mighty 
enenzy  which  gives  birth  to  his  conversion,  all  the  lesser  disgusts 
of  his  mind  are  overborne.  It  is  the  truth,  and  it  alone,  which 
rivets  him  ;  and  the  forms  of  the  existing  style  in  which  it  is  con- 
veyed to  him,  so  far  from  repelling,  may  only  be  endeared  to  him, 
by  being  associated  in  his  mind  with  what  he  esteems  so  valuable. 
We  have  reason  to  believe,  that  many  capable  of  rendering  the 
truth  into  a  richer  and  finer  dialect,  abstain  from  the  enterprise, 
because  they  find  the  truth  itself  to  be  enough  for  them,  and  count 
themselves  occupied  with  better  things,  than  the  care  of  embellish- 
ing the  vehicle  in  which  it  is  carried.  Many  are  thus  lost  to  that 
cause,  which  our  author,  for  the  sake  of  those  who  stand  without, 
is  so  wisely  contending  for.  Even  though  they  do  not  give  their 
positive  suffrages  to  the  existing  style,  they  may  acquiesce  in  it; 
and,  in  spite  of  the  proselytes  which  we  hope  vital  Christianity  is 
gaining  every  year  from  the  ranks  of  philosophy  and  elegant  litera- 
ture, the  phraseology  into  which  she  is  rendered  may  not  be  the 
better  of  them. 

We  observe,  with  sincere  pleasure,  that  the  author  gives  his 
most,  unqualified  reprobation,  to  those  who  turn  in  dislike  from  the 
truth,  from  the  mere  circumstances  of  meanness  and  contempt 
with  which  she  is  associated.  These  circumstances  would  not 
make  any  impression  on  a  mind  already  devoted  to  the  religion 
of  Jesus  Christ. 

"  No  passion  that  has  become  predominant,  is  ever  cooled  by  anything  which 
can  be  associated  with  its  object,  while  that  objeel  continues  unaltered.  The 
>,  i-  willing  even  to  verify  its  power,  and  the  merit  of  that  which  inter- 
ests it,  by  sometimes  letting  the  anpleasing  associations  surround  and  touch  the 
object  for  an  instant,  and  then  chasing  them  away,  and  it  welcomes  with  aug- 
mented attachment  that  object,  coming  forth  from  them  unstained ;  as  happy 


TECHNICAL    NOMENCLATURE    OF    THEOLOGY.  121 

spirits,  at  the  last  day,  will  receive  with  joy  their  bodies  recovered  from  the 
dust,  in  a  state  of  purity  that  will  leave  everything  belonging  to  the  dust  be- 
hind. A  zealous  Christian  exults  to  feel,  in  contempt  of  how  many  counteract- 
ing circumstances,  he  can  still  love  his  religion  ;  and  that  this  counteraction, 
by  exciting  his  understanding  to  make  a  more  defined  estimate  of  its  excellence, 
has  but  made  him  love  it  the  more.  It  has  now  preoccupied  even  those  avenues 
of  taste  and  imagination,  by  which  alone  the  ungracious  effect  of  associations 
could  have  been  admitted.  The  thing  itself  is  close  to  his  mind,  and  therefore 
the  causes  which  would  have  misrepresented  it,  by  coming  between,  have  lost 
their  power.  As  he  hears  the  sentiments  of  sincere  Christianity  from  the  weak 
and  illiterate,  he  says  to  himself,  All  this  is  indeed  little,  but  I  am  happy  to 
feel  that  the  subject  itself  is  great,  and  that  this  humble  display  of  it  cannot 
make  it  appear  to  me  different  from  what  I  absolutely  know  it  to  be,  any  more 
than  a  clouded  atmosphere  can  diminish  my  impression  of  the  grandeur  of  the 
heavens,  after  I  have  so  often  heheld  the  pure  azure  and  the  host  of  stars.  1 
am  glad  that  it  has,  in  this  man,  all  the  consolatory,  and  all  the  purifying  effi- 
cacy, which  I  wish  that  my  more  elevated  views  of  it  may  not  fail  to  have  in 
me.  This  is  the  chief  end  fur  which  a  divine  communication  can  have  been 
granted  to  the  world.  If  this  religion  had  been  of  a  nature  to  seek  to  acquire 
lustre  to  itself  from  the  mental  dignity  of  its  disciples,  rather  than  to  make  them 
pure  and  happy  amidst  their  littleness,  it  would  have  been  sent  to  none  of  us; 
at  least  not  to  me :  for  though  I  would  be  grateful  for  an  order  of  ideas  some- 
what superior  to  those  of  my  uncultivated  fellow  Christians,  I  am  conscious  that 
the  noblest  forms  of  thought  in  which  I  apprehend,  or  could  represent  the  sub- 
ject, do  but  contract  its  amplitude,  do  but  depress  its  sublimity.  Those  supe- 
rior spirits,  who  are  said  to  rejoice  over  the  first  proof  of  the  efficacy  of  divine 
truth,  have  rejoiced  over  its  introduction,  even  in  so  humble  a  form,  into  the 
mind  of  this  man,  and  probably  see,  in  fact,  but  little  difference  in  point  of  specu- 
lative greatness,  between  his  manner  of  viewing  and  illustrating  it  and  mine.  If 
Jesus  Christ  could  be  on  earth,  as  before,  he  would  receive  this  disciple,  and  be- 
nignantly  approve,  for  its  operation  on  the  heart,  that  faith  in  his  doctrines  which 
men  of  taste  might  be  tempted  to  despise  for  its  want  of  intellectual  refinement. 
And  since  all  his  true  disciples  are  destined  to  attain  greatness  at  length,  the 
time  is  coming  when  each  pious,  though  now  contracted  mind,  will  do  justice  to 
this  high  subject.  Meanwhile,  such  as  this  subject  will  appear  to  the  intelli- 
gence of  immortals,  and  such  as  it  will  be  expressed  in  their  eloquence,  such  it 
really  is  now ;  and  I  should  deplore  the  perversity  of  my  mind,  if  I  felt  m  in- 
disposed to  like  the  character  of  the  religion  from  that  style  of  its  exhibition 
in  which  it  appears  humiliated,  than  from  that  in  which  I  am  assured  it  will  be 
sublime.  If,  while  we  are  all  advancing  to  meet  the  revelations  of  eternity.  1 
have  a  more  vivid  and  comprehensive  idea,  than  these  less  privileged  Christians, 
of  the  glory  of  our  religion,  as  displayed  in  the  New  Testament,  and  if  I  can 
much  more  delightfully  participate  the  sentiments  which  devout  genius  has 
uttered  in  the  contemplation  of  it,  I  am  therefore  called  upon  to  excel  them  as 
much  in  devotedness  to  this  religion,  as  I  have  a  more  luminous  view  of  its  ex- 
cellence. Let  the  spirit  of  the  evangelical  system  once  gain  the  ascendency, 
and  it  may  thus  defy  the  impressions  tending  to  associate  disagreeable  ideas 
with  its  principles."     Page  260. 

"I  am  aware,  that  no  species  of  irreligion  can  be  much  more  detestable,  than 
to  sacrifice  to  the  idol  of  taste  anything  which  essentially  belongs  to  Christian- 
ity. If  any  part  of  evangelical  religion,  separately  from  all  injurious  associa- 
tions, were  of  a  nature  to  displease  a  finished  ta^te,  the  duty  would  evidently 
be,  to  repress  its  claims  and  murmurs.  We  should  dread  the  presumption 
which  would  require  of  the  Deity,  that  his  spiritual  economy  should  be  both  in 
fact,  and  in  a  manner  obvious  to  our  view,  subjected  or  correspondent  in  all 
parts  to  those  laws  of  order  and  beauty,  which  we  have  learnt,  partly  from  the 
relations  of  the  material  world,  and  partly  from  the  arbitrary  institutions  and 

16 


122  TECHNICAL  NOMENCLATURE  OF  THEOLOGY. 

habits  of  society.  But,  at  the  same  time,  it  is  a  most  unwise  policy  for  religion 
that  the  sacrifice  of  taste,  which  ought,  if  required,  to  be  submissively  made  to 
any  part  of  either  its  essence  or  its  form,  as  really  displayed  from  heaven, 
should  be  exacted  to  anything  unnecessarily  and  ungracefully  superinduced  by 
men."     Page  306. 

We  cannot  propose  to  follow  our  author,  through  all  his  ob- 
servations upon  the  requisite  changes  that  must  be  made  in  the 
theological  style  before  it  can  be  accommodated  to  men  of  taste 
and  general  literature.  We  fulfil  our  object,  if  we  awaken  the 
curiosity  of  our  readers ;  nor  shall  we  regret  leaving  them  with 
an  unquenched  appetite,  if  it  shall  have  the  effect  of  carrying  them 
direct  to  this  masterly  composition.  We  feel  it  our  duty,  how- 
ever, to  advert  to  one  circumstance,  which,  if  not  attended  to, 
may  lead  to  tne  sacrifice  of  substantial  sentiments.  He  allows, 
that  theology,  like  every  other  science,  must  have  its  technicals ; 
but,  while  he  is  for  sparing  these,  he  thinks  that  much  may  be  done 
by  substituting  one  set  of  words  for  another.  Thus,  for  walk  and 
conversation,  substitute  conduct,  actions,  and  deportment ;  for 
flesh  substitute  sometimes  body  and  sometimes  natural  inclination ; 
and,  in  addition  to  these  instances,  we  present  our  readers  with 
the  following  extract : 

"  Though  there  are  few  words  in  strict  truth  synonymous,  yet  there  are  very 
many  which  are  so  in  effect,  even  by  the  allowance  and  sanction  of  the  most 
rigid  laws  to  which  the  best  writers  have  conformed  their  composition.  Per- 
haps this  is  a  defect  in  human  thinking :  perhaps  every  conception  ought  to  be 
so  exquisitely  discriminative  and  precise,  that  no  two  words,  which  have  the 
most  refined  shade  of  difference  in  their  meaning,  should  be  equally  and  indif- 
ferently eligible  to  express  that  conception  :  But  what  writer  or  speaker  will 
ever  exemplify,  or  even  aspire  to  such  perfection  ?  If  a  divine  felt  that  he  had 
this  extreme  discrimination  of  thought,  and  that  he  meant  something  clearly 
different  by  the  words — carnal,  godly,  edifying,  and  so  of  many  others,  from 
what  he  would  express  by  the  words  sensual,  pious,  instructive,  he  would  cer- 
tainly do  right  to  adhere  to  the  more  peculiar  words  :  but  if  he  does  not,  he 
may  perhaps  improve  the  vehicle  without  hurting  the  material  of  his  religious 
communications,  by  adopting  the  general  and  classical  mode  of  expression." 
Page  298. 

Now,  we  assert,  that  even  in  some  of  these  very  changes,  we 
can  see  a  reason  why,  at  the  outset  of  the  proposed  reformation, 
the  material  of  the  religious  communication  may  be  hurt  by  adopt- 
ing the  general  and  classical  mode  of  expression.  The  meaning 
of  any  word  is  collected  from  the  general  sense  in  which  it  is  un- 
derstood by  the  authors  who  make  use  of  it.  Now,  we  apprehend 
that  the  word  godly,  as  it  occurs  in  the  works  of  evangelical  au- 
thors, means  a  great  deal  more  than  the  word  pious,  as  it  occurs 
in  the  lucubrations  of  our  tasteful  and  academical  moralists.  It  is 
true,  that  if  you  were  to  bring  each  party  to  their  definitions,  there 
may  be  no  perceivable  difference  in  the  account  which  each  gave 
of  the  signification  of  the  two  words.  But  it  is  not  the  formally 
announced  meaning  that  we  are  concerned  with.     It  is  what  the 


TECHNICAL    NOMENCLATURE    OF    THEOLOGY.  123 

author  himself  calls  the  meaning  in  effect;  and  we  contend,  that 
this  meaning  is  only  to  be  sought  from  the  general  tone  and  senti- 
ment of  those  who  make  use  of  the  word  in  question.  We  assert, 
then,  that,  in  point  of  fact,  the  word  godly,  in  the  mind  of  an  evan- 
gelical author,  denotes  a  sentiment,  far  more  deeply  seated  in  its 
principle,  and  far  wider  in  its  operation,  than  the  word  pious  in 
the  great  bulk  of  classical  and  literary  authors :  that  the  one  car- 
ries along  with  it  the  idea  of  a  far  more  entire  devotedness  to  God 
than  the  other;  that  the  one  brings  you  up  to  the  high  requisition 
of  the  New  Testament,  which  calls  upon  you  to  do  all  things  to 
God's  glory ;  while  the  other  is  satisfied  with  less  thorough  and 
less  painful  renunciations,  and  may  consist  with  many  acts  of  ac- 
commodation to  the  world,  which  a  Christian,  in  the  full  extent 
and  significancy  of  the  term,  would  shrink  from.  We  therefore 
assert,  that  the  effective  meaning  of  the  one  word  is  different  from 
the  effective  meaning  of  the  other  ;  that  the  translation  would  not 
be  a  fair  one ;  that  it  would  give  us  a  meaning  which  came  short 
of  the  original  in  energy  and  extent ;  and  that,  though  you  im- 
prove the  vehicle  of  the  religious  communication,  by  patching 
upon  it  the  livery  of  a  classical  author,  you  hazard  the  material 
of  the  communication  itself,  by  bringing  it  down  to  the  standard 
of  his  slender  and  inefficient  conceptions. 

We  are  quite  aware,  that  with  some  this  may  not  appear  an 
apposite  example.  But  it  is  for  this  very  reason  that  we  select  it; 
because  the  cause  why  it  does  not  appear  apposite  to  them,  is  a 
strong  confirmation  of  the  truth  which  we  are  aiming  to  illustrate. 
Let  it  be  recollected,  that  it  is  only  at  the  outset  of  the  proposed 
change,  that  we  conceive  danger  to  exist ;  and  accordingly,  how- 
ever inapposite  the  above  example  may  appear  to  some,  we  think 
that  it  will  appear  apposite  enough  to  those  whose  reading  has 
been  confined  to  the  Bible,  and  the  older  theologians.  We  are 
almost  quite  sure,  that  to  their  minds  piety  is  a  more  meagre  and 
unsubstantial  word  than  godliness,  and  that  in  the  substitution 
therefore  of  the  one  for  the  other,  the  sentiment  appears  enfeebled, 
and  duty  seems  to  sink  downward  from  the  high  standard  of  its 
old  requisitions.  Before  there  is  felt  to  be  a  perfect  equivalency 
betwixt  the  two  terms,  the  word  piety  must  be  used  for  some  time 
by  authors  whose  sentiments  are  as  evangelical,  and  as  deeply  in- 
fused with  the  vitality  of  Christian  sentiment,  as  the  excellent  com- 
positions of  the  puritanical  age.  Now  we  know,  that  for  some 
time,  there  have  been  such  authors,  and  accordingly  there  are  al- 
ready some  readers  who  feel  the  equivalency,  and  may  therefore 
conceive  the  above  example  to  be  ill  selected.  We  have  no  doubt, 
that  in  the  progress  of  time,  the  great  majority  of  readers  will 
come  to  feel  the  perfect  equivalency  of  the  two  terms  ;  that  when 
such  writers  as  Foster,  and  Hall,  and  Gregory,  and  Hannah  More 
multiply  amongst  us,  the  word  piety  will  be  raised  above  that 
humble  pitch  of  sentiment  to  which  it  has  been  sunk  by  our  slen- 


124  TECHNICAL    NOMENCLATURE    OF    THEOLOGY. 

der  divines,  and  unchristian  moralists ;  that  as  it  gets  into  better 
hands,  all  the  associations  of  feebleness  and  inadequacy,  which  it 
derived  from  the  tone  of  its  old  patrons,  will  be  chased  away  from 
it;  and  after  a  temporary  inconvenience,  the  religious  communi- 
cation will  not  only  come  out  in  an  improved  vehicle,  but  the  ma- 
terial will  pass  to  us  in  all  its  force,  and  in  all  its  entireness. 

While  we  are  upon  the  influence  of  new  words,  it  niay  not  be 
foreign  to  our  subject,  but  rather  give  additional  illustration  to  it, 
if  we  apply  the  above  remark  to  an  amended  translation  of  Dr. 
Campbell's.  It  is  true,  that  /uejuroia  and  /usTafteXofiat.,  are  words  of 
different  signification,  and  should  be  rendered  by  different  words 
in  the  English  translation.  We  fear,  however,  that  the  meaning 
in  effect  of  Dr.  Campbell's  "  reformation"  is  not  equivalent  to  the 
/uezuyoia  of  the  New  Testament.  It  is  true,  that  if  for  the  mean- 
ing of  the  word  reformation,  you  were  to  connect  it  with  its  de- 
rivatives, it  may  be  made  to  express  that  full  change,  which  we  so 
often  read  of  in  the  New  Testament ;  and  to  be  formed  again  con- 
veys as  strong  an  idea  of  regeneration,  as  to  be  "  born  again,"  and 
to  be  "transformed  by  the  renewing  of  the  mind."  But  no  man 
knows  better  than  Dr.  Campbell  did,  that  in  the  choice  of  words 
we  must  be  regulated  by  the  actual,  and  not  by  the  etymological 
sense.  Now  were  the  actual  sense  of  the  word  reformation  to  be 
taken  from  the  average  use  of  those  who  employ  it,  it  would  con- 
vey, I  am  afraid,  an  idea  far  short  of  "  repentance  unto  salva- 
tion." We  conceive  that  the  term  is  currently  employed  to  de- 
note a  change  of  external  habit,  without  any  reference  to  the  op- 
eration of  the  inner  principle  which  gave  rise  to  it ;  and  that  the 
man  who  prunes  his  conduct  of  its  notorious  and  visible  deficien- 
cies from  propriety,  is  termed  a  reformed  man.  To  make  use  of 
a  phrase  which  we  fear  may  be  provincial,  andj  therefore  not 
understood  by  all  our  readers,  the  reformed  man  is  equivalent  to 
the  man  who  has  turned  over  a  new  leaf ;  and  as  this  may  be 
done,  and  has  been  done  without  the  operation  of  a  true  Christian 
principle,  the  term  reformation  does  not  in  effect  come  up  to  that 
total  change  of  soul,  and  spirit,  and  body,  which  is  implied  in  the 
fiEiutotu  of  the  Evangelists.  In  a  word,  reformation,  so  far  from 
being  fiBravoia,  is  only  a  fruit  worthy  of  it.  It  is  a  stream  flowing 
out  of  that  well  of  water,  which  springeth  up  into  everlasting  life. 
Other  streams  may  bear  a  deceitful  semblance  to  it,  and  may 
wear  its  name  ;  and  we  regret  that  a  word  should  have  been 
here  employed  which,  in  its  effective  meaning,  stops  short  at 
the  outward  conduct,  and  carries  us  not  up  to  that  "renewal  in 
the  spirit  of  our  minds,"  by  which  we  "  die  unto  sin,  and  live  unto 
righteousness." 

But  to  return  to  the  author  before  us.  If  two  churches  lay  at 
an  equal  distance  from  our  dwelling-house,  the  one  furnished  with 
a  good  road,  and  the  other  with  a  bad  one,  the  inducement  to 
attend,  in  as  far  as  this  circumstance  had  weight,  would  lie  on  the 


TECHNICAL  NOMENCLATURE  OF  THEOLOGY.         125 

side  of  the  former.  But  if  in  point  of  fact,  a  lax  and  feeble  Chris- 
tianity was  taught  in  the  former,  while  in  the  latter,  Christianity 
was  taught  in  a  pure  and  evangelical  form  ;  the  repair  of  the  last 
road  would,  on  that  very  account,  become  an  object  more  dear 
than  ever  to  benevolence  and  true  piety.  In  the  same  manner,  if 
general  literature  be  rendered  attractive  by  the  embellishments  of 
taste,  and  of  good  expression,  while  the  evangelical  doctrines  of 
the  Gospel  are  set  forward  in  that  slovenly  and  vulgar  style,  which 
is  calculated  to  repel  attention  at  the  very  outset,  it  becomes  of 
importance  to  inquire,  what  is  the  kind  of  lessons  which  general 
literature  affords,  and  in  how  far  they  are  congenial  with  the  les- 
sons of  our  Saviour.  If  we  find  that  there  is  a  total  want  of  con- 
geniality, the  reformation  proposed  by  the  enlightened  author  be- 
fore us,  becomes  on  that  very  account,  an  object  of  higher  neces- 
sity and  importance.  Now  we  think,  that  Mr.  Foster  has  com- 
pletely established  this  want  of  congeniality,  and  that  in  contrast- 
ing the  spirit  both  of  ancient  and  modern  literature,  with  the  spirit 
of  the  New  Testament,  he  has  proved  the  influence  of  the  one  to 
be  in  direct  hostility  to  the  influence  of  the  other.  On  this  very 
account,  it  becomes  our  bounden  duty  to  give  the  one  every  attrac- 
tion which  the  other  is  in  possession  of,  provided  that  the  material 
of  the  communication  shall  not  be  hurt  or  impaired  by  it.  Let  us, 
if  possible,  equalize  the  inducements,  and  give  that  which  is  salu- 
tary an  air  as  inviting,  as  that  which  we  think  our  author  proves 
incontestably  to  be  most  poisonous  and  destructive.  Hear  him 
upon  the  tendency  of  Homer's  poetry,  the  most  powerful  in  the 
world  for  seducing  a  young  and  ardent  imagination,  and  for  impart- 
ing an  unchristian  tone  of  sentiment  to  its  devoted  admirers. 

"  I  therefore  ask  again,  how  it  would  be  possible  for  a  man,  whose  mind  was 
first  completely  assimilated  to  the  spirit  of  Jesus  Christ,  to  read  such  a  work 
without  a  most  vivid  antipathy  to  what  he  perceived  to  be  the  moral  spirit  of 
the  poet?  And  if  it  were  not  too  strange  a  supposition,  that  the  most  charac- 
teristic parts  of  the  Iliad  had  been  read  in  the  presence  and  hearing  of  our 
Lord,  and  by  a  person  animated  by  a  fervent  sympathy  with  the  work,  do  you 
not  instantly  imagine  him  expressing  the  most  emphatic  indignation  ?  Would 
not  the  reader  have  been  made  to  know,  that  in  the  spirit  of  that  book,  he 
could  never  become  a  disciple  and  a  friend  of  the  Messiah  ?  But  then,  if  he 
believed  this  declaration,  and  were  serious  enough  to  care  about  being  the  dis- 
ciple and  friend  of  the  Messiah,  would  he  not  have  deemed  himself  extremely 
unfortunate  to  have  been  seduced,  through  the  pleasures  of  taste  and  imagina- 
tion, into  habits  of  feeling,  which  rendered  it  impossible,  till  they  could  be  de- 
stroyed, for  him  to  receive  the  only  true  religion,  and  the  only  Redeemer  of  the 
world  ?  To  show  how  impossible,  I  wish  I  may  be  pardoned  for  making  another 
.strange,  and,  indeed,  a  most  monstrous  supposition,  namely,  that  Achilles,  Dio- 
mede,  Ajax,  and  Ulysses  had  been  real  persons,  living  in  the  time  of  our  Lord, 
and  had  become  his  disciples,  and  yet,  (excepting  the  mere  exchange  of  the 
notions  of  mythology  for  Christian  opinions,)  had  retained  entire  the  state  of 
mind  with  which  their  poet  has  exhibited  them.  It  is  instantly  perceived  that 
Satan,  Beelzebub,  and  Moloch  might  as  consistently  have  been  retained  in 
heaven.  But  here  the  question  comes  to  a  point ;  if  these  great  examples  of 
glorious  character,  pretending  to  coalesce  with  the  transcendent  sovereign  of 


126  TECHNICAL    NOMENCLATURE    OF    THEOLOGY. 

virtue,  would  have  been  probably  the  most  enormous  incongruity  existing,  or 
that  ever  had  existed,  in  the  whole  universe,  what  harmony  can  there  be  be- 
tween a  man  who  has  acquired  a  considerable  degree  of  congeniality  with  the 
spirit  of  these  heroes,  and  that  paramount  teacher,  and  pattern  of  excellence  ? 
And  who  will  assure  mc,  that  the  enthusiast  for  heroic  poetry  does  not  acquire 
a  degree  of  this  congeniality  ?  But  unless  I  can  be  so  assured,  I  persist  in  as- 
serting the  noxiousness  of  such  poetry. 

"  Yet  the  work  of  Homer  is  notwithstanding  the  book  which  Christian  poets 
have  translated,  which  Christian  divines  have  edited  and  commented  on  with 
pride,  at  which  Christian  ladies  have  been  delighted  to  see  their  sons  kindle 
into  rapture,  and  which  forms  an  essential  part  of  the  course  of  a  liberal  edu- 
cation, over  all  those  countries  on  which  the  Gospel  shines.  And  who  can  tell 
how  much  that  passion  for  war,  which  from  the  universality  of  its  prevalence, 
might  seem  inseparable  from  the  nature  of  man,  may,  in  the  civilized  world, 
have  been  reinforced  by  the  enthusiastic  admiration,  with  which  young  men 
have  read  Homer  and  similar  poets,  whose  genius  has  transformed  what  is,  and 
.    ought  always  to  appear  purely  horrid,  into  an  aspect  of  grandeur."     Page  346. 

We  cannot  follow  him  through  the  masterly  exposition  of  the 
modern  writers,  nor  can  we  offer  more  than  a  passing  tribute  to 
those  fine  discriminating  powers  which  Mr.  Foster  has  exhibited 
in  his  observations  on  the  Christianity  of  Samuel  Johnson.  We 
concur  with  him  in  his  general  condemnation  of  the  British  Clas- 
sics ;  for  both  in  their  speculations  upon  the  basis  of  duty,  upon 
the  prospects  of  man,  upon  the  place  which  he  occupies,  and  upon 
the  relation  which  he  stands  in  to  his  God,  and  in  the  consolations 
which  they  address  to  suffering  and  dying  humanity,  we  recog- 
nize the  features  of  a  school  at  entire  antipodes  with  the  school  of 
Christ.  But  we  cannot  do  better  on  this  part  of  the  subject,  than 
offer  extracts  from  the  author  himself. 

"  One  thing  extremely  obvious  to  remark  is,  that  the  good  man,  the  man  of 
virtue,  who  is  necessarily  presented  to  view  ten  thousand  times  in  the  volumes 
of  these  writers,  is  not  a  Christian.  His  character  could  have  been  formed, 
though  the  Christian  revelation  had  never  been  opened  on  the  earth  ;  or  though 
all  the  copies  of  the  New  Testament  had  perished  ages  since  ;  and  it  might  have 
appeared  admirable,  but  not  peculiar.  There  are  no  foreign  unaccountable 
marks  upon  it,  that  could  in  such  a  preclusion  of  the  Christian  truth,  have  ex- 
cited wonder ;  what  could  be  the  relations,  or  the  object  of  such  a  strange,  but 
systematical  singularity,  and  in  what  school  or  company  it  had  acquired  its  prin- 
ciples and  its  feelings  ?  Let  it  only  be  said,  that  this  man  of  virtue  had  con- 
versed whole  years  with  the  instructors  of  Plato  and  Cicero,  and  all  would  be 
explained.  Nothing  would  lead  to  ask,  '  But  with  whom  then  has  he  conversed 
since,  to  lose  so  completely  the  appropriate  character  of  his  schools,  under  the 
broad  impression  of  some  other  mightier  influence?' 

"  The  good  man  of  our  polite  literature,  never  talks  with  affectionate  devotion 
of  Christ,  as  the  great  High  Priest  of  his  profession,  as  the  exalted  Friend, 
whose  injunctions  are  the  laws  of  his  virtues,  whose  work  and  sacrifice  are  the 
basis  of  his  hope,  whose  doctrines  guide  and  awe  his  reasonings,  and  whose  ex- 
ample is  the  pattern  which  he  is  earnestly  aspiring  to  resemble.  The  last  in- 
tellectual and  moral  designation  in  the  world,  by  which  it  would  occur  to  you 
to  describe  him,  would  be  those  by  which  the  apostles  so  much  exulted  to  be 
recognized,  a  disciple,  and  a  servant  of  Jesus  Christ;  nor  would  he  (I  am  siip- 
posing  this  character  to  become  a  real  person)  be  at  all  gratified  by  being  so 
described.  You  do  not  hear  him  avowing  that  he  deems  the  habitual  remem- 
brance of  Christ  essential  to  the  nature  of  that  excellence  which  he  is  cultivat- 


TECHNICAL    NOMENCLATURE    OF    THEOLOGY.  127 

ing.  He  rather  seems,  with  the  utmost  coolness  of  choice,  adopting  virtue  as 
according  with  the  dignity  of  a  rational  agent,  than  to  be  in  the  last  degree  im- 
pelled to  it  by  any  relations  with  the  Saviour  of  the  world. 

"  On  the  supposition  of  a  person  realizing  this  character,  having  fallen  into 
the  company  of  St.  Paul,  you  can  easily  imagine  the  total  want  of  congeniality. 
Though  both  avowedly  devoted  to  truth,  to  virtue,  and  perhaps  to  religion,  the 
difference  in  the  cast  of  their  sentiments  would  have  been  as  great,  as  that  be- 
tween the  physical  constitution  and  habitudes  of  a  native  of  the  country  at  the 
equator,  and  those  of  one  from  the  arctic  regions.  Would  not  the  apostle's  feel- 
ing of  the  continual  intervention  of  ideas  concerning  one  object,  in  all  subjects, 
places,  and  times,  have  appeared  to  this  man  of  virtue  and  wisdom,  inconceiv- 
ably mystical  ?  In  what  manner  would  he  have  listened  to  the  emphatical  ex- 
pressions respecting  the  love  of  Christ  constraining  us  ;  living  not  to  ourselves, 
but  to  him  that  died  for  us  and  rose  again ;  counting  all  things  but  loss  for  the 
knowledge  of  Christ ;  being  ardent  to  win  Christ,  and  be  found  in  him ;  and 
trusting  that  Christ  should  be  magnified  in  our  body,  whether  by  life  or  by 
death  ?  Perhaps  St.  Paul's  energy,  and  the  appearance  of  its  being  accom- 
panied by  the  firmest  intellect,  might  have  awed  him  into  silence.  But  amidst 
that  silence,  he  must,  in  order  to  defend  his  self-complacency,  have  decided, 
that  the  apostle's  mind  had  fallen,  notwithstanding  its  strength,  under  the  do- 
minion of  an  irritable  association;  for  he  would  have  been  conscious,  that  no 
such  ideas  had  ever  kindled  his  affections,  and  that  no  such  affections  had  ever 
animated  his  actions ;  and  yet  he  was  indubitably  a  good  man,  and  could,  in 
another  style,  be  as  eloquent  for  goodness  as  St.  Paul  himself.  He  would  there- 
fore have  concluded,  either  that  it  was  not  necessary  to  be  a  Christian,  or  that 
this  order  of  feelings' was  not  necessary  to  that  character.  But  if  the  apostle's 
sagacity  had  detected  the  cause  of  this  reserve,  and  the  nature  of  his  associate's 
reflections,  he  would  most  certainly  have  declared  to  him  with  great  solemnity, 
that  both  these  things  were  necessary,  or  that  he  had  been  deceived  by  inspira- 
tion, and  he  would  have  parted  from  this  self-complacent  man  with  admonition 
and  compassion.  Now,  would  St.  Paul  have  been  wrong  ?  But  if  he  would 
have  been  right,  what  becomes  of  those  authors,  whose  works,  whether  from 
neglect  or  design,  tend  to  satisfy  their  readers  of  the  perfection  of  a  form  of  char- 
acter, which  he  would  have  pronounced  fatally  defective  ? 

"  Again,  moral  writings  are  instructions  on  the  subject  of  happiness.  Now, 
the  doctrine  of  this  subject  is  declared  in  the  evangelical  testimony  :  it  had  been 
strange,  indeed,  if  it  had  not,  when  the  happiness  of  man  was  the  precise  ob- 
ject of  the  communication.  And  what,  according  to  this  communication,  are 
the  essential  requisites  to  that  condition  of  mind,  without  which  no  man  ought 
to  be  called  happy ;  without  which  ignorance  or  insensibility  alone  can  be  con- 
tent, and  folly  alone  can  be  cheerful  ?  A  simple  reader  of  the  Christian  Scriptures 
will  reply,  that  they  are  a  change  of  heart,  called  conversion, — the  assurance 
of  the  pardon  of  sin  through  Jesus  Christ, — a  habit  of  devotion,  approaching  so 
near  to  intercourse  with  the  Supreme  Object  of  devotion,  that  revelation  has 
called  it  communion  with  God, — a  process  of  improvement  called  sanctifi cation, 
— a  confidence  in  the  divine  Providence,  that  all  things  shall  work  together  for 
good, — and  a  conscious  preparation  for  another  life,  including  a  firm  hope  of 
eternal  felicity.  And  what  else  can  he  reply  ?  What  else  can  you  reply  ? 
Did  the  lamp  of  heaven  ever  shine  more  clearly  since  Omnipotence  lighted  it, 
than  these  ideas  display  themselves  through  the  New  Testament  ?  Is  this,  then, 
absolutely  the  true,  and  the  only  true  account  of  happiness  ?  It  is  not  that 
which  our  accomplished  writers  in  general  have  chosen  to  sanction.  Your  re- 
collection will  tell  you,  that  they  have  most  certainly  presumed  to  avow,  or  to 
insinuate,  a  doctrine  of  happiness,  which  implies  much  of  the  Christian  doctrine 
to  be  a  needless  intruder  on  our  speculations,  or  an  imposition  on  our  belief; 
and  I  am  astonished,  that  this  serious  fact  should  so  little  have  alarmed  the 
Christian  students  of  elegant  literature.     The  wide  difference  between  the  die- 


128  TECHNICAL    NOMENCLATURE    OF    THEOLOGY. 

tates  of  the  two  authorities  is  too  evident  to  be  overlooked  ;  for  the  writers  in 
question  have  very  rarely}  amidst  an  immense  assemblage  of  sentiments  con- 
cerning happiness,  made  any  reference  to  what  the  New  Testament  so  obviously 
declares  to  be  its  constituent  and  vital  principles.  How  many  times  you  might 
read  the  sun  or  the  moon  to  repose,  before  you  would  find  an  assertion  or  a  re- 
cognition, for  instance,  of  a  change  of  the  mind  being  requisite  to  happiness,  in 
any  terms  commensurate  with  the  significance  which  this  article  seems  to  bear, 
in  all  the  various  forms  in  which  it  is  expressed  and  repeated  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment. Some  of  these  writers  appear  hardly  to  have  admitted,  or  to  have  re- 
collected even  the  proposition,  that  happiness  must  essentially  consist  in  some- 
thing so  fixed  in  the  mind  itself,  as  to  be  substantially  independent  of  external 
circumstances ;  for  their  most  animated  representations  of  it,  are  merely  descrip- 
tions of  fortunate  combinations  of  these  circumstances,  and  of  the  feelings  im- 
mcdiatelv  caused  by  them,  which  will  expire  the  moment  that  these  combina- 
tions are  broken  up.  The  greater  number  have,  however,  fully  admitted  the  prop- 
osition, and  have  given  their  illustration  of  the  doctrine  of  happiness  accordingly. 
And  what  appears  in  these  illustrations  as  the  highest  form  of  happiness  ?  It  is 
probably  that  of  a  man  feeling  an  elevated  complacency  in  his  own  excellence,  a 
proud  consciousness  of  rectitude  ;  possessing  extended  views,  cleared  from  the 
mists  of  ignorance,  prejudice,  and  superstition ;  unfolding  the  generosity  of  his 
nature  in  the  exercise  of  beneficence,  without  feeling,  however,  any  grateful  in- 
citement from  remembrance  of  the  transcendent  generosity  of  the  Son  of  man ; 
maintaining,  in  respect  of  the  events  and  bustle  of  the  surrounding  scene,  a  dig- 
nified indifference,  which  can  let  the  world  go  its  own  way,  and  can  enjoy  its 
tranquillity  the  while  ;  and  living  in  a  cool  resignation  to  fate,  without  any  strong 
expressions  of  a  specific  hope,  or  even  solicitude,  with  regard  to  the  termination 
of  life,  and  to  all  futurity.  Now,  whatever  degree  of  resemblance  some  of  these 
distinctions  may  bear  to  the  Christian  theory  of  happiness,  it  is  evident,  that, 
on  the  whole,  the  two  modes  are  so  different,  that  the  same  man  cannot  realize 
them  both.  The  result  is  obvious;  the  natural  effect  of  incompetent  and  fal- 
lacious schemes,  prepossessing  the  mind  by  every  grace  of  genius,  will  be  an 
aversion  to  the  Christian  views  of  happiness,  which  will  appear  at  the  least 
very  strange,  and  probably  very  irrational."     Pp.  382 — 388. 

There  is  one  ppint  in  which  we  are  happy  not  to  concur  with 
the  estimable  author  of  the  performance  before  us.  He  speaks  as 
if  the  author,  whose  unchristian  tendencies  he  has  so  successfully 
exposed,  had  such  decided  possession  of  the  public  taste,  that  it  is 
impossible  to  dislodge  them. 

il  Under  what  restrictions,"  says  he  in  his  concluding  paragraph,  "  ought  the 
study  of  polite  literature  to  be  conducted  ?  I  cannot  but  have  foreseen,  that 
this  question  must  return  at  the  end  of  these  observations,  and  I  can  only  an- 
swer, as  I  have  answered  before,  Polite  literature  will  necessarily  continue  to 
be  the  grand  school  of  intellectual  and  moral  cultivation.  The  evils,  therefore, 
which  it  may  contain,  will  as  certainly  affect,  in  some  degree,  the  minds  of  the 
successive  students,  as  the  hurtful  influence  of  the  climate,  or  of  the  seasons, 
will  affect  their  bodies.  To  be  thus  affected,  is  a  part  of  the  destiny  under 
which  they  are  born  in  a  civilized  country.  It  is  indispensable  to  acquire  the 
ad  vantage  :  it  is  inevitable  to  incur  the  evil.  <The  means  of  counteraction  will 
amount,  it  is  to  be  feared,  to  no  more  than  palliatives.  Nor  can  these  be  pro- 
posed in  any  specific  method.  All  that  I  can  do,  is  to  urge  on  the  reader  of 
taste,  the  very  serious  duty  of  continually  calling  to  his  mind — and  if  he  is  a 
parent  or  preceptor,  of  cogently  representing  to  his  pupils — the  real  character 
of  the  religion  of  the  New  Testament,  and  the  reasons  which  command  an  in- 
violable adherence  to  it." 


TECHNICAL    NOMENCLATURE    OF    THEOLOGY.  129 

In  another  place  he  says  "  he  really  does  not  see  what  a  serious 
observer  of  the  character  of  mankind  can  offer."  When  a  man 
contemplates  a  mischief  in  all  its  inveteracy  and  extent,  he  is  not 
to  sink  into  hopeless  despondency,  because  he  finds  he  cannot 
sweep  it  away  by  the  power  of  his  own  individual  arm.  What 
no  single  individual  can  effect,  may  be  done  by  the  operation  of 
time,  and  the  strength  of  numbers.  We  know  of  no  single  writer 
who  has  contributed  more  to  the  good  cause  than  Mr.  Foster 
himself.  He  has  alarmed  many  a  Christian  for  the  safety  of  his 
principles.  He  has  thrown  a  new  element  into  our  estimation  of 
the  classics.  The  element  is  a  disquieting  one,  and  it  will  unset- 
tle that  complacency  with  which  we  were  wont  to  read  and  ad- 
mire them.  He  has  himself  given  some  very  fine  and  powerful 
specimens  of  the  reformed  dialect  that  he  contends  for  ;  and,  in 
the  Essays  before  us,  we  meet  with  passages  which  can  bear  com- 
parison with  the  happiest  paragraphs  of  Johnson.  He  cordially 
allows,  that  in  the  subject  itself  there  is  a  grandeur,  which  it  were 
vain  to  look  for  in  any  of  the  ordinary  themes  of  eloquence  or 
poetry.  Let  writers  arise,  then,  to  do  it  justice.  Let  them  be  all 
things  to  all  men,  that  they  may  gain  some ;  and  if  a  single  pros- 
elyte can  be  thereby  drawn  from  the  ranks  of  literature,  let  all 
the  embellishments  of  genius  and  fancy  be  thrown  around  the 
subject.  One  man  has  already  done  much.  Others  are  rising 
around  ;  and,  with  the  advantage  of  a  higher  subject,  they  will  in 
time  rival  the  unchristian  moralists  of  the  day,  and  overmatch 
them.  We  look  upon  taste  as  too  frail  and  fluctuating  an  element 
in  the  human  character,  to  found  any  despair  upon.  It  is  not  in 
this  quarter  where  the  stubbornness  of  the  resistance  lies.  It  is  in 
the  natural  enmity  of  the  human  heart  to  divine  things  ;  and  we 
rejoice  to  think,  that  this  is  a  principle  which  is  destined  to  receive 
its  death-blow  from  a  higher  hand.  The  experience  of  a  few 
years  may  well  convince  us,  that  there  is  nothing  irreversible  in 
human  affairs  ;  and  that  even  minds  and  opinions  are  subject  to  as 
great  and  sudden  revolutions  as  the  fortunes  or  politics  of  the 
species.  Let  us  not  be  appalled,  then,  by  the  existence  of  error, 
however  deeply  rooted,  or  widely  spread  among  mankind.  Let 
us  not  acquiesce  in  it  as  some  hopeless  calamity,  which  no  resist- 
ance can  overpower,  and  which  can  only  be  qualified  by  half 
measures  and  paltry  mitigations.  Let  us  lift  an  intrepid  voice  for 
the  entire  removal  of  all  that  offendeth. 

17 


ON   THE    EFFICACY   OF  MISSIONS, 

AS    CONDUCTED   BY 

THE   MORAVIANS; 


BEING   THE 


SUBSTANCE    OF    AN    ARGUMENT 


CONTRIBUTED   TO 


"THE  ECLECTIC  REVIEW" 

IN  1815. 


The  natural  enmity  of  the  human  heart  to  the  things  of  God,  is 
a  principle,  which  though  it  find  no  place  in  the  systems  of  our 
intellectual  philosophers,  has  as  wide  an  operation  as  any  which 
they  have  put  down  in  their  list  of  categories.  How  is  it  then 
that  Moravians,  who,  of  all  classes  of  Christians,  have  evinced  the 
most  earnest  and  persevering  devotedness  to  these  things,  have 
of  late  become,  with  men  of  taste,  the  objects  of  tender  admira- 
tion ?  That  they  should  be  loved  and  admired  by  the  decided 
Christian,  is  not  to  be  wondered  at :  but  that  they  should  be  idols  of 
a  fashionable  admiration  ;  that  they  should  be  sought  after  and 
visited  by  secular  men ;  that  travellers  of  all  kinds  should  give 
way  to  the  ecstasy  of  sentiment,  as  they  pass  through  their  vil- 
lages, and  take  a  survey  of  their  establishments  and  their  doings ; 
that  the  very  sound  of  Moravian  music,  and  the  very  sight  of  a 
Moravian  burial-place,  should  so  fill  the  hearts  of  these  men  with 
images  of  delight  and  peacefulness,  as  to  inspire  them  with  some- 
thing like  the  kindlings  of  piety ; — all  this  is  surely  something  new 
and  strange,  and  might  dispose  the  unthinking  to  suspect  the  truth 
of  these  unquestionable  positions,  that  "the  carnal  mind  is  enmity 
against  God,"  and  that  "the  natural  man  receiveth  not  the  things 
of  the  Spirit  of  God,  for  they  are  foolishness  unto  him,  neither  can 
he  know  them,  because  they  are  spiritually  discerned." 

But  we  do  not  imagine  it  difficult  to  give  the  explanation.  It  is 
surely  conceivable  that  the  actuating  principle  of  a  Moravian  en- 


ON    THE    MORAVIANS    VIEWED    AS    MISSIONARIES.  131 

terprise,  may  carry  no  sympathy  whatever  along  with  it,  while 
many  things  may  be  done  in  the  prosecution  of  this  enterprise, 
most  congenial  to  the  taste,  and  the  wishes,  and  the  natural  feel- 
ings of  worldly  men.  They  may  not  be  able  to  enter  into  the 
ardent  anxiety  of  the  Moravians  for  the  salvation  of  human  souls; 
and  when  the  principle  is  stripped  of  every  accompaniment,  and 
laid  in  naked  and  solitary  exhibition  before  them,  they  may  laugh 
at  its  folly,  or  be  disgusted  by  its  fanaticism.  This,  however,  is 
the  very  principle  on  which  are  founded  all  their  missionary  un- 
dertakings ;  and  it  is  not  till  after  a  lengthened  course  of  opera- 
tions, that  it  gathers  those  accompaniments  around  it,  which  have 
drawn  upon  the  United  Brethren  the  homage  of  men  who  shrink 
in  repugnance  and  disgust  from  the  principle  itself.  With  the 
heart's  desire  that  men  should  be  saved,  they  cannot  sympathize ; 
but  when  these  men,  the  objects  of  his  earnest  solicitude,  live  at  a 
distance,  the  missionary,  to  carry  his  desire  into  effect,  must  get 
near  them,  and  traversing  a  lengthened  line  on  the  surface  of  the 
globe,  he  will  supply  his  additions  or  his  corrections  to  the  science 
of  geography.  When  they  speak  in  an  unknown  tongue,  the  mis- 
sionary must  be  understood  by  them  ;  and  giving  his  patient  labor 
to  the  acquirement  of  a  new  language,  he  furnishes  another  docu- 
ment to  the  student  of  philology.  When  they  are  signalized  by 
habits  or  observances  of  their  own,  the  missionary  records  them 
for  the  information  and  benefit  of  his  successors ;  and  our  knowl- 
edge of  human  nature,  with  all  its  various  and  wonderful  peculi- 
arities, is  extended.  When  they  live  in  a  country,  the  scenery 
and  productions  of  which  have  been  yet  unrecorded  by  the  pen 
of  travellers,  the  missionary,  not  unmindful  of  the  sanction  given 
by  our  Saviour  himself  to  an  admiration  of  the  appearances  of 
nature,  will  describe  them,  and  give  a  wider  range  to  the  science 
of  natural  history.  If  they  are  in  the  infancy  of  civilization,  the 
mighty  power  of  Christian  truth  will  soften  and  reclaim  them. 
And  surely,  it  is  not  difficult  to  conceive,  how  these  and  similar 
achievements  may  draw  forth  an  acknowledgment  from  many, 
who  attach  no  value  to  the  principles  of  the  Gospel,  and  take  no 
interest  in  its  progress ;  how  the  philosopher  will  give  his  testi- 
mony to  the  merits  of  these  men  who  have  made  greater  progress 
in  the  work  of  humanizing  savages,  than  could  have  been  done  by 
the  ordinary  methods  in  the  course  of  centuries;  and  how  the  in- 
teresting spectacle  of  Esquimaux  villages  and  Indian  schools, 
may,  without  the  aid  of  any  Gospel  principle  whatever,  bring  out 
strains  of  tenderest  admiration  from  tuneful  poets  and  weeping 
sentimentalists. 

All  this  is  very  conceivable,  and  it  is  what  Moravians,  at  this 
moment,  actually  experience.  They  have  been  much  longer  in  the 
field  of  missionary  enterprise,  than  the  most  active  and  conspicu- 
ous of  their  fellow  laborers  "belonging  to  other  societies.  They 
have  had  time  for  the  production  of  more  gratifying  results ;  and 


132  ON    THE    MORAVIANS    VIEWED    AS    MISSIONARIES. 

the  finished  spectacle  of  their  orderly  and  peaceful  establishments, 
strikes  at  once  upon  the  eye  of  many  an  admirer,  who  knows  not 
how  to  relish  or  to  appreciate  the  principle  which  gives  life  and 
perpetuity  to  the  whole  exhibition. 

These  observations  may  serve  to  account  for  the  mistaken  prin- 
ciple upon  which  many  admirers  of  the  United  Brethren  give  them 
the  preference  over  all  other  missionaries.  We  are  ready  to  con- 
cur in  the  preference,  but  not  in  the  principle  upon  which  they 
found  it.  They  conceive  that  the  Moravians  make  no  attempt 
towards  christianizing  the  heathen,  till  they  have  gone  through 
the  long  preparatory  work  of  training  them  up  in  the  arts  of  life, 
and  in  the  various  moralities  and  decencies  of  social  intercourse. 
This  is  a  very  natural  supposition ;  but  nothing  can  be  more  un- 
true. It  is  doing  just  what  every  superficial  man  is  apt  to  do  in 
other  departments  of  observation — mistaking  the  effect  for  the 
cause.  They  go  to  a  missionary  establishment  of  United  Brethren 
among  the  heathen.  They  pay  a  visit  to  one  of  their  villages, 
whether  in  Greenland,  in  S.  Africa,  or  on  the  coast  of  Labrador. 
It  is  evident  that  the  cleanly  houses,  cultivated  gardens,  and  neat 
specimens  of  manufacture,  will  strike  the  eye  much  sooner — than 
the  unseen  principle  of  this  wonderful  revolution  in  the  habits  of 
savages  will  unfold  itself  to  the  discernment  of  the  mind.  And 
thus  it  is,  that  in  their  description  of  all  this,  they  reverse  the  ac- 
tual process.  They  tell  us  that  these  most  rationaJ  of  all  mission- 
aries, begin  their  attempts  on  the  heathen  by  the  work  of  civiliz- 
ing them ;  that  they  teach  them  to  weave,  to  till,  and  to  store  up 
winter  provisions,  and  to  observe  justice  in  their  dealings  with  one 
another ;  and  then,  and  not  till  then,  do  they,  somehow  or  other, 
implant  upon  this  preliminary  dressing,  the  mysteries  and  pecu- 
liarities of  the  Christian  Faith.  Thus  it  is  that  these  men  of  mere 
spectacle  begin  to  philosophize  on  the  subject,  and  set  up  the  case 
of  the  Moravians  as  a  reproach  and  an  example  to  all  other  mis- 
sionaries. 

Now  we  venture  to  say  that  the  Moravians,  at  the  outset  of 
their  conference  with  savages,  keep  at  as  great  a  distance  from 
any  instruction  about  the  arts  of  weaving,  and  sewing,  and  tilling 
land,  as  the  Apostle  Paul  did,  when  he  went  about  among  Greeks 
and  barbarians,  charged  with  the  message  of  salvation  to  all  who 
would  listen  and  believe.  He  preached  nothing  but  "  Jesus  Christ 
and  him  crucified."  and  neither  do  they  ;  and  the  faith  which  at- 
tends the  word  of  their  testimony,  how  foolish  and  fanatical  soever  it 
may  appear  in  the  eyes  of  worldly  men,  proves  it  to  be  the  power  of 
God  and  the  wisdom  of  God  unto  salvation.  It  is  another  evidence 
of  the  foolishness  of  God  being  wiser  than  men,  and  the  weakness 
of  God  being  stronger  than  men.  However  wonderful  it  may  be, 
yet  such  is  the  fact,  that  a  savage,  when  spoken  to  on  the  subject 
of  his  soul,  of  sin,  and  of  the  Saviour,  "has  his  attention  more  easily 
compelled,  and  his  resistance  more  effectually  subdued,  than  when 


ON    THE    MORAVIANS    VIEWED    AS    MISSIONARIES.  133 

he  is  addressed  upon  any  other  subject  whether  of  moral  or  eco- 
nomical instruction.  And  this  is  precisely  the  way  in  which  Mo- 
ravians have  gone  to  work.  They  preached  the  peculiar  tenets 
of  the  New  Testament  at  the  very  outset.  They  gained  con- 
verts through  that  Faith  which  cometh  by  hearing.  These  con- 
verts multiplied,  and,  in  m/iny  instances,  they  have  settled  around 
them.  It  is  true  that  they  have  had  unexampled  success  in  the 
business  of  civilizing  their  disciples  ;  but  it  has  arisen  from  their 
having  stood  longer  on  the  vantage  ground  of  the  previous 
knowledge  of  Christianity  with  which  they  had  furnished  them, 
than  any  other  missionaries  ;  and  the  peace,  and  order,  and  indus- 
try, which  are  represented  by  rash  and  superficial  observers,  as 
the  antecedents  of  the  business,  are,  in  fact,  so  many  consequents 
flowing  out  of  the  mighty  influence  which  attends  the  word  of 
their  testimony. 

It  is  well  that  the  Moravians  have  risen  into  popular  admira- 
tion.    This  will  surelv  give  weight  to  their  own  testimonv  about 

■TOO  •• 

their  own  matters.  And  when  one  of  their  members  publishes 
an  account  of  the  manner  in  which  the  United  Brethren  preach 
the  Gospel,  and  carry  on  their  missions  among  the  heathen,  infor- 
mation from  such  a  quarter  will  surely  be  looked  upon  as  of 
higher  authority  than  the  rapid  description  of  a  traveller.  jNow 
such  a  treatise  has  been  published  by  Spangenberg  ;  and  it  does 
not  appear  that  any  preparatory  civilization  is  now  attempted  by 
their  missionaries,  who  have  been  engaged  in  the  business  for 
many  years,  and  have  been  eminent  above  all  others,  both  for  their 
experience  and  their  success.  We  shall  subjoin  a  few  extracts  as 
being  completely  decisive  upon  this  point. 

"  The  method  of  the  brethren  to  bring  the  heathen  to  Christ  was,  in  the  be- 
ginning of  their  attempts,  particularly  in  Greenland,  nearly  as  follows: — 

"  They  proved  to  the  heathen  that  there  is  a  God,  and  spoke  to  them  of  His 
attributes  and  perfections.  In  the  next  place,  they  spoke  upon  the  creation; — 
how  God  had  made  man  after  His  own  image,  which,  however,  was  soon  lost 
by  the  fall.  They  then  made  the  heathen  acquainted  with  the  laws  which  God 
gave  by  His  servant  Moses.  Hence  they  proved  to  them  that  they  were  sin- 
ners, and  had  deserved  temporal  and  eternal  punishment.  And  from  this  they 
drew  the  consequence,  that  there  must  be  one  who  reconciled  them  to  God,  &c. 

•*  This  method  of  teaching  they  continued  for  a  long  time,  but  without  any 
success,  for  the  heathen  became  tired  of  such  discourses.  If  it  be  asked,  how 
happened  it  that  the  brethren  fell  upon  the  said  method,  I  must  confess  that  I 
am  apprehensive  I  was  myself  the  cause  of  it.  The  first  brethren  who  were 
destined  for  Greenland,  went  to  Copenhagen  by  way  of  Halle,  where  I  at  that 
time  lived.  They  tarried  a  few  days  with  me,  and  conversed  with  me  relative 
to  their  intentions.  Upon  this,  I  gave  them  a  book  to  read,  (for  I  knew  no  bet- 
ter at  that  time,^>  in  which  a  certain  divine  treated,  among  the  rest,  of  the  method 
to  convince  and  to  bring  the  heathen  to  Christ.  The  good  man  had  probably 
never  seen  a  heathen  in  all  his  life,  much  less  converted  any ;  but  yet  he  im- 
agined he  could  give  directions  how  to  set  about  it.  The  brethren  followed 
them,  but  without  success. 

"  Meanwhile,  it  pleased  the  Lord  our  Saviour  to  give  the  congregation  at 
Herrnhut  more  insight  into  the  word  of  atonement  through  the  offering  of  Jesu6. 


134  ON    THE    MORAVIANS    VIEWED    AS    MISSIONARIES. 

Nor  were  the  heathen  wanting  in  declaring  to  those  in  Greenland,  that  they 
must  preach  Jesus  Christ,  if  they  meant  to  produce  any  blessing  among  the 
heathen.  Upon  this,  the  brethren  began  to  translate  some  parts  of  the  Gospel, 
especially  what  relates  to  the  sufferings  and  death  of  Jesus,  and  read  that  to  the 
heathen.  This  gave  an  opportunity  to  speak  with  them  farther  on  that  head. 
Then  God  opened  their  hearts  that  they  attended  to  the  word,  and  it  proved  to 
them  also  the  power  of  God.  They  became  desirous  of  hearing  more  about  it, 
and  the  fire  which  had  been  kindled  in  them  by  the  Holy  Ghost,  spread  farther 
and  farther.  And  thus  many  were  converted  to  God :  since  which  time  the 
brethren  were  frequently  asked  by  the  heathen,  why  they  did  not  preach  sooner 
to  them  of  Jesus ;  that  they  had  been  quite  tired  of  hearing  the  discourses  about 
God,  and  the  two  first  parents,  &c. 

"  About  thirty  years  ago,  when  I  lived  in  North  America,  I  sometimes  got 
the  brethren  that  were  used  occasionally  in  the  service  of  our  Lord  to  come  to- 
gether, in  order  that  I  might  converse  with  them  about  their  labors.  Johannes, 
an  Indian  of  the  Mahikander  nation,  who  had  formerly  been  a  very  wicked 
man,  but  was  now  thoroughly  converted,  and  was  our  fellow-laborer  in  the  con- 
gregation gathered  from  among  the  heathens  at  that  time  dwelling  in  Chekome 
kah,  happened  to  be  just  then  on  a  visit  with  us,  and  also  came  to  our  little 
meeting.  He  was  a  man  that  had  excellent  gifts,  was  a  bold  confessor  of  what 
he  knew  to  be  true,  and  understood  the  German  language  so  as  to  express  him- 
self with  sufficient  clearness.  As  we  were  speaking  with  one  another  about 
the  heathen,  he  said,  among  other  things, — 'Brethren,  I  have  been  a  heathen 
and  am  grown  old  among  them ;  I  know,  therefore,  very  well  how  it  is  with  the 
heathen.  A  preacher  came  once  to  us,  desiring  to  instruct  us,  and  began  by 
proving  to  us  that  there  was  a  God.  On  which  we  said  to  him,  "  Well,  and 
dost  thou  think  we  are  ignorant  of  that?  now  go  again  whence  thou  earnest." 
Another  preacher  came  another  time,  and  would  instruct  us,  saying,  Ye 
must  not  steal,  nor  drink  too  much,  nor  lie,  &c. — We  answered  him,  "  Fool, 
that  thou  art !  dost  thou  think  that  we  do  not  know  that  ?  go  and  learn  it  first 
thyself,  and  teach  the  people  thou  belongest  to  not  to  do  these  things.  For  who 
are  greater  drunkards,  or  thieves,  or  liars,  than  thine  own  people?"  Thus  we 
sent  him  away  also.  Some  time  after  this  Christian  Henry,  one  of  the  brethren, 
came  to  me  into  my  hut,  and  sat  down  by  me.  The  contents  of  his  discourse 
tome  were  nearly  these  : — I  come  to  thee  in  the  name  of  the  Lord  of  heaven  and 
earth.  He  acquaints  thee  that  he  would  gladly  save  thee,  and  rescue  thee  from 
the  miserable  state  in  which  thou  liest.  To  this  end  he  became  a  man,  hath 
given  his  life  for  mankind,  and  shed  his  blood  for  them,  &c.  Upon  this  he  lay 
down  upon  a  board  in  my  hut  and  fell  a-sleep,  being  fatigued  with  his  journey. 
1  thought  within  myself. — what  manner  of  man  is  this?  there  he  lies  and  sleeps 
so  sweetly  ;  I  might  kill  him  immediately,  and  throw  him  out  into  the  forest, 
who  would  care  for  it  ?  but  he  is  unconcerned.  However,  I  could  not  get  rid  of 
his  words:  they  continually  recurred  to  me ;  and  though  I  went  to  sleep,  yet  I 
dreamed  of  the  blood  which  Christ  had  shed  for  us.  I  thought — this  is  very 
strange,  and  went  to  interpret  to  the  other  Indians  the  words  which  Christian 
Henry  spake  farther  to  us.  Thus,  through  the  grace  of  God,  the  awakening 
among  us  took  place.  I  tell  you,  therefore,  brethren,  preach  to  the  heathen 
Christ  and  his  blood,  and  his  death,  if  ye  would  wish  to  produce  a  blessing 
among  them.     Such  was  the  exhortation  of  Johannes,  the  Mahikander,  to  us. 

"  But  the  brethren  were  already,  before  that  time,  convinced  that  Jesus 
Christ  must  be  the  marrow  and  substance  of  the  preaching  of  the  Gospel 
among  the  heathen,  even  as  He  is  in  general  called,  with  justice,  the  marrow 
and  substance  of  the  whole  Bible.  The  ground  of  this  position  is  contained  in 
Sect.  9,  and  following,  where  we  treated  of  the  Apostles' labors  among  the  Gen- 
tiles. Nor  shall  we  do  amiss  if  we  follow  the  method  of  the  Apostles,  who,  in 
their  office,  were  under  the  peculiar  leadings  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  as  far  as  it  is 
applicable  to  us.     Hence  what  Paul  writes  to  the  Corinthians — '  I  determined 


ON    THE    MORAVIANS    VIEWED    AS    MISSIONARIES.  135 

not  to  know  anything  among  you  save  Jesus  Christ  and  him  crucified,' — is  a 
firmly  established  rule  for  us  in  preaching  to  the  heathen."  (Spangenberg's 
Account  of  the  Manner  in  which  the  United  Brethren  carry  on  their  Missions 
aznong  the  Heathen.     Sections  44 — 46.) 

Before  we  give  any  more  extracts  from  Spangenberg,  we  can- 
not help  remarking  on  the  efficacy  of  the  simple  word  upon 
minds  totally  unfurnished  by  any  previous  discipline  whatever. 
This  is  something  more  than  matter  of  faith  ;  it  is  matter  of  ex- 
perience :  it  is  the  result  of  many  an  actual  experiment  upon  hu- 
man nature.  And  how  comes  it,  therefore,  that  philosophers  of 
the  day  are  so  often  found  to  flinch  from  their  favorite  evidence 
on  every  question  connected  with  the  truth  and  the  progress  of 
Christianity?  The  efficacy  of  the  Bible  alone,  upon  simple  and 
unfurnished  minds,  is  a  fact ;  and  the  finest  examples  of  it  are  to 
be  found  in  almost  every  page  of  the  annals  of  Moravianism. 
The  worthy  men  of  this  denomination  have  long  labored  in  the 
field  of  missionary  exertion,  and  Greenland  was  one  scene  of  their 
earliest  enterprises.  In  their  progress  thither,  they  were  furnished 
with  a  cloistered  speculation  on  the  likeliest  method  of  obtaining 
access  to  the  mind  of  a  savage  for  the  truths  of  Christianity. 
These  men  had  gone  out  of  Germany  without  any  other  instru- 
ments for  their  work  than  the  Word  of  God  in  their  hands,  and  a 
believing  prayer  in  their  hearts.  But  the  author  of  this  specula- 
tion had  thought,  and  thought  profoundly  on  the  subject ;  and  the 
humble  brethren  bowed  for  once  to  the  wisdom  of  this  world, 
when  his  synthetic  process  for  the  conversion  of  savages  was  put 
into  their  hands,  and  they  took  it  along  with  them.  Thus  fur- 
nished, they  entered  upon  the  field  of  exertion  ;  and  never  was 
human  nature  subjected  to  experiment  under  circumstances  more 
favorable.  Never  did  it  come  in  a  more  simple  and  elementary 
state  under  the  treatment  of  a  foreign  application.  There  was  no 
disturbing  cause  to  affect  the  result  of  this  interesting  trial ;  no 
bias  of  education  to  embarrass  our  conclusions  ;  no  mixture  of 
any  previous  ingredient  to  warp  and  to  darken  the  phenomena,  or 
to  throw  a  disguise  over  that  clear  and  decisive  principle  which 
was  on  the  eve  of  emerging  from  them.  The  rationalizing  pro- 
cess of  the  divine  was  first  put  into  operation  and  it  failed.  Year 
after  year  did  they  take  their  departure  from  the  simplicity  of  his 
first  principles,  and  try  to  conduct  the  Greenlanders  with  them 
along  the  pathway  which  he  had  constructed  for  leading  them  to 
Christ.  The  Greenlanders  refused  to  move  a  single  step,  and 
with  as  great  obstinacy  as  the  world  of  matter  refuses  to  conform 
her  processess  to  the  fanciful  theories  of  men.  The  brethren,  dis- 
heartened at  the  result  of  an  operation  so  fatiguing  and  so  fruit- 
less, resolved  to  vary  the  experiment,  and  throwing  aside  all  their 
preparatory  instructions,  they  brought  the  word  of  the  testimony 
directly  to  bear  upon  them.  The  effect  was  instantaneous.  God. 
who  knoweth  what  is  in  man,  knoweth  also  the  kind  of  application 


136  ON    THE    MORAVIANS    VIEWED    AS    MISSIONARIES. 

that  should  be  made  to  man.  He  glorified  the  word  of  His  grace, 
and  gave  it  efficacy.  That  word  which  He  Himself  commanded 
to  be  preached  to  all  nations,  to  the  barbarians  as  well  as  the 
Greeks,  is  surely  the  mighty  instrument  for  the  pulling  down  of 
strong  holds  ;  and  the  Moravians  have  found  it  so.  The  Green- 
land experiment  has  furnished  them  with  a  principle  which  they 
carry  along  with  them  in  all  their  enterprises.  It  has  seldom 
failed  them  in  any  quarter  of  the  globe  ;  and  they  can  now  appeal 
to  thousands  and  thousands  of  their  converts,  as  so  many  distinct 
testimonies  of  the  efficacy  of  the  Bible. 

We  like  to  urge  the  case  of  the  Aloravians,  for  we  think  that 
much  may  be  made  of  it  in  the  way  of  reclaiming  that  unhallowed 
contempt  which  some  of  the  ablest,  and  most  accomplished  men 
of  this  country  have  expressed  for  a  righteous  cause.  The  truth 
is,  that  these  Moravians  have  of  late  become  the  objects  of  a  sen- 
timental admiration,  and  that  too  to  men  whom  the  power  of  Di- 
vine grace  has  not  yet  delivered  from  their  natural  enmity  to  the 
truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus.  Their  numerous  establishments ;  and  the 
many  interesting  pictures  of  peace,  and  order,  and  industry,  which 
they  have  reared  among  the  wilds  of  heathenism,  have  at  length 
compelled  the  testimony  of  travellers.  It  is  delightful  to  be  told 
of  the  neat  attire  and  cultivated  gardens  of  savages  ;  and  we  can 
easily  conceive  how  a  sprig  of  honeysuckle,  at  the  cottage  door 
of  a  Hottentot,  may  extort  some  admiring  and  poetical  prettiness 
from  a  charmed  spectator,  who  would  shrink  offended  from  the  pe- 
culiarities of  the  Gospel.  Now  they  are  right  as  to  the  fact.  It 
is  all  very  true  about  the  garden  and  the  honeysuckle  ;  but  they 
are  most  egregiously  wrong  as  to  the  principle  :  And  when  they 
talk  of  these  Moravians  as  the  most  rational  of  missionaries,  be- 
cause they  furnish  their  converts  with  the  arts  and  the  comforts  of 
life,  before  they  ever  think  of  pressing  upon  them  the  mysteries 
of  their  faith,  they  make  a  most  glaring  departure  from  the  truth, 
and  that  too  in  the  face  of  information  and  testimony  afforded  by 
the  very  men  whom  they  profess  to  admire.  It  is  not  true  that 
Moravians  are  distinguished  from  other  missionaries  by  training 
their  disciples  to  justice,  and  morality,  and  labor,  in  the  first 
instance  ;  and  by  refraining  to  exhort  to  faith  and  self-abasement. 
It  is  not  true  nor  does  it  consist  with  the  practice  of  the  Moravi- 
ans, that,  in  regard  to  savages,  some  advance  towards  civilization 
is  necessary,  preparatory  to  any  attempt  to  christianize  them. 
This  attempt  is  made  at  the  very  outset ;  and  should  they  meet 
with  a  fellow-creature  in  the  lowest  state  of  uncultivation,  it  is 
enough  for  them  that  he  is  a  man  ;  nor  do  they  wait  the  issue  of 
any  preparation  whatever  previously  to  laying  before  him  the  will 
of  God  for  the  salvation  of  mankind.  The  degree  of  cultivation, 
it  would  appear,  is  a  thing  merely  accidental.  It  has  too  slender 
an  influence  upon  the  result  to  be  admitted  into  their  calculations ; 
nor  does  it  ailect  the  operation  of  those  great  principles  which  are 


ON    THE    MORAVIANS    VIEWED    AS    MISSIONARIES.  137 

concerned  in  the  transition  of  a  human  soul  out  of  darkness  into 
the  marvellous  light  of  the  Gospel.  Why  lavish  all  your  admira- 
tion upon  the  sensible  effect,  while  ye  shrink  in  disgust  from  the 
explanation  of  the  principle  1  Why,  ye  votaries  of  science,  whose 
glory  it  is  to  connect  phenomena  with  their  causes,  why  do  you 
act  so  superficially  in  this  instance,  and  leave  with  the  fanatics 
whom  you  despise,  all  the  credit  of  a  manly  and  unshrinking  phi- 
losophy ?  They  can  tell  you  all  about  it,  for  they  were  present 
at  every  step  of  the  process  ;  and  the  most  striking  development 
of  the  natural  enmity  ever  witnessed,  is  to  be  seen  in  that  mixture 
of  contempt  and  incredulity,  and  wonder,  with  which  you  listen 
to  them.  One  might  be  amused  at  observing  so  much  of  the  pride 
of  philosophy  combined  with  so  glaring  a  dereliction  of  all  its 
principles  ;  but  a  feeling  more  serious  is  awakened  when  we  think 
of  that  which  is  spoken  of  in  the  prophecies  of  Habakkuk  :  "  I 
work  a  work  in  your  days,  a  work  which  ye  shall  in  no  wise  be- 
lieve, though  a  man  declare  it  unto  you." — "  Behold,  ye  despisers, 
and  wonder,  and  perish  !" 

Although  it  is  at  the  hazard  of  extending  this  article  to  a  dis- 
proportionate length,  yet  we  feel  strongly  tempted  to  present  an- 
other extract  from  Spangenberg.  It  tends  to  prove  that  the  work 
of  civilization  is  altogether  subsequent  to  the  work  of  conversion  ; 
and  the  attempts  of  the  United  Brethren  in  this  way,  are  among 
men  whom  they  had  previously  reclaimed  from  heathenism,  by 
that  peculiar  method  of  evangelizing  which  has  been  already 
insisted  on.  We  shall  make  no  other  change  in  the  extract  than 
to  throw  into  Italics  those  parts  of  it  which  bear  most  decisively 
upon  the  argument  in  question. 

"  It  is  likewise  a  concern  of  the  brethren,  that  have  the  care  of  the  heathen, 
to  bring  those  that  are  converted  to  our  Saviour  into  good  order  outwardly.  We 
have  found  in  most  places  where  brethren  dwell  among  the  heathen,  that  the 
latter  go  on  without  much  care  or  thinking.  Were  they  with  suitable  consid- 
eration to  regiilate  their  matters  duly,  to  take  care  and  manage  what  Provi- 
dence gives  to  them,  they  would  not  so  often  be  driven  to  the  utmost  distress. 
But  instead  of  that,  they  are  idle  when  they  should  labor,  and  when  they  have 
anything  to  eat  they  will  squander  it  in  an  extravagant  manner;  and  after- 
ward they  are  miserably  distressed  for  want  of  food,  and  tormented  by  the  cares 
of  this  life. 

"  But  when  they  are  baptized,  the  brethren  advise  them  to  a  regular  labor,  e. 
g.  to  plant  in  due  season,  to  hunt,  to  fish,  and  to  do  everything  needful :  they 
also  learn  of  the  brethren  how  to  keep  and  preserve  what  they  may  get  for  the 
winter.  And  being  incapable  of  making  a  proper  calculation,  (for  they  have 
no  almanacs,)  and  to  regulate  themselves  according  to  the  seasons,  the  brethren 
also  assist  them  in  this  respect.  I  will  illustrate  this  by  an  instance  or  two. 
Dried  herrings  are  of  great  use  to  the  Greenlanders  in  winter  for  their  subsist- 
ence ;  but  when  they  grow  wet  they  are  spoiled.  To  obviate  this  the  brethren 
not  only  encourage  the  Greenlanders  to  be  diligent  in  catching  herrings  at  the 
proper  season,  but  also  to  dry  them  well,  and  assist  them  in  preserving  them 
dry.  If  the  brethren  are  among  the  Indians,  they  endeavor  to  get  them  to 
clear  their  fields  at  the  right  time,  to  surround  them  with  hedges,  plant  them 
with  Indian  wheat,  and  to  cut  it  down  in  a  proper  manner  ;  thus  a  difference  is 

18 


138  ON    THE    MORAVINNS    VIEWED    AS    MISSIONARIES. 

very  perceptible  between  their  people  and  other  Indians,  for  if  those  Indians 
who  have  neglected  planting  sutler  hunger,  the  others  have  always  so  much  as 
to  be  able  to  spare  a  part  of  it  to  them. 

"  Various  tilings  occasionally  occur  which  must  be  brought  into  order  among 
the  heathen  that  are  converted  to  Christ.  If  (e.  g.)  a  provider  dies  in  Green- 
land, (thus  they  call  the  head  of  the  family,)  the  widow  and  her  orphans  are 
worse  oil' than  any  one  can  imagine.  Or  if  a  husband  loses  his  wife,  and  she 
has  left  a  small  child  that  still  wants  the  mother's  breast,  he  is  as  badly  off,  for 
it  is  very  difficult  to  get  a  Greenland  woman  to  suckle  any  child  but  her  own. 
Hence  it  is  that  those  Greenlanders  that  are  yet  heathen,  and  live  among 
heathen,  find  themselves  obliged  at  times  to  bury  such  a  motherless  infant 
alive.  Now  if  the  case  occurs  that  the  wife  of  a  husband  dies,  leaving  a  suck- 
ing child  behind,  the  brethren  do  not  rest  till  they  find  a  person  that  will  take 
care  of  the  little  orphan,  and  give  it  suck  with  her  own  child.  If  the  husband 
dies  they  divide  the  orphans,  and  take  care  to  have  them  properly  educated, 
and  likewise  that  the  widow  may  be  supplied  with  the  necessaries  of  life.  In 
sickness,  likewise,  which  happens  among  the  heathen,  the  brethren  are  obliged 
frequently  to  take  care  of  their  people. 

"  There  are  indeed  some  people  among  the  heathen  that  know  good  reme- 
dies for  various  disorders,  and  for  this  reason  they  are  made  use  of  by  others. 
Among  the  Indians  in  North  America,  there  are  (e.  g.)  people  who  success- 
fully cure  the  bite  of  serpents,  and  to  whom  the  neighboring  Europeans  have 
recourse  in  such  cases.  Also  among  the  negroes  in  the  West  Indies  are  skilful 
and  experienced  persons,  to  whom  others  apply  in  their  diseases.  But  these 
heathenish  doctors  are  jugglers,  and  generally  affect  to  show  they  cure  the  sick 
by  magic.  Therefore  believers  from  among  the  heathen,  when  sick,  consult 
their  teachers,  and  often  apply  with  success  such  remedies  as  they  have  for 
their  own  use. 

"  Moreover,  divers  misfortunes  that  occur  in  the  congregations  among  the 
heathen,  reduce  the  brethren  to  the  necessity  of  taking  care  of  them  also,  in 
respect  to  their  outward  concerns.  There  was  (e.  g.)  a  congregation  of  Indi- 
ans at  Chekameka  in  the  district  of  New  York,  which  had  formerly,  in  a  fit  of 
intoxication,  and  while  they  were  still  heathen,  sold  the  right  to  their  land  for 
a  trifle,  and  when,  afterward,  they  became  converted,  occasion  was  taken  from 
this  to  drive  them  out  of  their  country.  Most  of  these  people  took  refuge  with 
the  brethren  at  Bethlehem  in  Pennsylvania,  and  were,  with  the  consent  of  the 
governor  of  Pennsylvania,  received  and  treated  in  a  brotherly  and  hospitable 
manner.  A  piece  of  land  was  purchased  for  them  on  the  Mahoni,  which 
answered  the  purpose  of  hunting  as  well  as  for  the  cultivation  of  their  corn, 
and  they  were  assisted  by  the  brethren  in  building,  and  in  the  management  of 
their  outward  matters. 

"  The  same  thing  happened  with  other  Indians,  who  were  obliged  to  quit 
the  land  they  had  sold  at  Wechquatnach. 

"  The  Indian  congregation  at  Meniolagomekah  experienced  the  same  fate, 
and  the  brethren  could  not  forbear  lending  them  a  helping  hand  in  such  circum- 
stances, and  caring  for  their  support. 

"  In  the  year  1755,  the  brethren  who  lived  with  the  Indian  congregation  at 
the  Mahoni,  were  surprised  at  the  beginning  of  the  night,  by  those  Indians  who 
had  taken  up  the  hatchet  against  the  English  (that  is,  according  to  their  lan- 
guage, had  begun  the  war).  They  killed  eleven  of  the  brethren,  dispersed  the 
whole  congregation,  and  laid  the  whole  place  in  ashes.  But  the  brethren  sought 
again  for  the  scattered  sheep,  took  them  to  Bethlehem,  where  they  provided 
for  them,  and  took  the  same  care  of  their  souls  as  they  had  done  before." 
(Spangenberg,  §  69— '71.) 

We  have  one  remark  more  to  offer  on  this  part  of  the  subject. 
Had  the  missionary  system  of  the  United  Brethren  attracted,  fifty 


ON    THE    MORAVIANS    VIEWED    AS    MISSIONARIES.  139 

years  ago,  the  attention  of  the  same  men  of  general  literature, 
who  are  now  so  eloquent  in  its  praises,  it  is  evident  that  it  could 
not  have  achieved  their  homage,  nor  excited  their  sympathy.  At 
that  early  period  of  their  labors,  they  had  not  the  same  command- 
ing spectacle  to  offer  as  the  result  of  their  missionary  labors. 
Sufficient  time  had  not  elapsed  for  the  full  effect  and  development 
of  their  principles ;  but  they  were  busy  at  work  with  the  princi- 
ples themselves.  They  were  preaching,  and  praying,  and  putting 
into  action,  the  weapons  of  their  spiritual  ministry  ;  and  had  the 
fastidious  admirer  of  neat  and  interesting  villages,  taken  a  look  at 
them  during  the  earlier  years  of  their  missionary  enterprise,  he 
would  have  nauseated  the  whole  precedure  as  the  effect  of  mean 
revolting  fanaticism.  Now  let  it  not  be  forgotten  that  what  the 
Moravians  were  then,  some  of  the  later  class  of  missionaries  are 
at  this  moment.  They  have  positively  not  had  time  for  the  pro- 
duction of  the  same  striking  and  numerous  results ;  but  they  are 
very  busy  and  very  promising  in  that  line  of  operation  which 
leads  to  them.  To  be  art  admirer  of  the  result  is  a  very  differ- 
ent thing  from  being  an  admirer  of  the  operation.  To  be  the  one, 
all  that  is  necessary  is  a  taste  for  what  is  wonderful,  or  what  is 
pleasing ;  and  what  can  be  more  wonderful,  and,  at  the  same  time, 
more  pleasing,  than  a  group  of  Hottentot  families  reclaimed  from 
the  barbarism  of  their  race,  and  living  under  obedient  control  to 
the  charities  and  decencies  of  the  Gospel  ?  But  that  a  person 
may  become  an  admirer  of  the  operation,  he  must  approve  the 
faith ;  he  must  be  influenced  by  a  love  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ ; 
he  must  have  a  belief  in  the  efficacy  of  prayer;  he  must  have  a 
relish  for  that  which  a  majority,  we  fear,  of  professing  Chris- 
tians would  stamp  with  the  brand  of  enthusiasm ;  in  a  word,  his 
natural  enmity  to  the  things  of  God  must  be  beginning  to  give 
way,  and  he  be  an  admirer  of  the  truth  in  all  its  unction  and  in 
all  its  simplicity.  Let  not,  therefore,  the  later  missionaries  be 
mortified  at  the  way  in  which  they  have  been  contrasted  with  the 
Moravians.  They  are  just  passing  through  the  very  ordeal  through 
which  these  worthy  men  passed  before  them.  It  is  a  trial  of  their 
faith,  and  of  their  patience  ;  and  if  they  keep  the  same  steadfast- 
ness, to  the  simplicity  that  is  in  Christ ;  if  they  maintain  the  same 
enduring  dependence  upon  God ;  if  they  resist  the  infection  of  a 
worldly  spirit,  with  the  same  purity  of  heart  which  has  ever 
marked  the  United  Brethren,  and  preserve  themselves  through  all 
the  varieties  of  disappointment  and  success  as  free  from  the  temp- 
tations of  vain  glory,  or  bitterness,  or  emulation  ;  then  may  they 
look  forward  to  the  day  when  they  shall  compel  the  silence  of 
gainsayers  by  exhibitions  equally  wonderful  and  promising. 

The  United  Brethren  failed  in  their  first  attempt  to  settle  on 
the  coast  of  Labrador,  in  1752  ;  nor  did  they  renew  their  attempt 
till  an  offer  was  made  by  Jens  Haven,  in  1764,  to  go  out  as  a  mis- 
sionary to  that  country.     He  had  been  for  some  years  a  mission- 


140  ON    THE    MORAVIANS    VIEWED    AS    MISSIONARIES. 

ary  in  Greenland  ;  and  from  the  strong  affinity  between  the  two 
languages,  he  was  able  to  make  himself  understood  by  the  Es- 
quimaux. This  secured  him  a  degree  of  acceptance  among  that 
barbarous  people,  which  was  never  before  experienced  by  any 
European  ;  a  circumstance  highly  agreeable  to  Sir  Hugh  Palliser, 
at  that  time  Governor  of  Newfoundland,  and  which  obtained  for 
the  missionary,  the  countenance  of  the  Board  of  Trade  and  Plan- 
tations. 

It  was  found  necessary,  however,  to  defer  the  missionary  work 
for  some  years,  till  Mikak,  an  Esquimaux  woman,  was  brought  to 
London,  and  attracted  the  same  kind  of  notice  among  people  of 
rank  and  influence  in  the  metropolis,  that  was  afterwards  excited 
by  the  appearance  of  the  well-known  Otaheitean  in  this  country. 
She  here  met  with  Jens  Haven,  and  earnestly  solicited  his  pro- 
tection for  her  poor  countrymen,  many  of  whom  had  been  slaugh- 
tered in  a  late  affray  with  the  English.  She  was  of  great  use  in 
advancing  the  business  of  the  mission  ;  and  a  grant  was  at  length 
obtained  from  the  Privy  Council,  by  which  the  Brethren's  Society 
for  the  furtherance  of  the  Gospel,  obtained  permission  from  the 
King  and  his  Ministers,  to  make  settlements  on  the  coast  of  Lab- 
rador, and  to  preach  the  Gospel  to  the  Esquimaux. 

Under  cover  of  this  permission,  Haven,  accompanied  with 
others,  sailed  for  the  coast  of  Labrador,  purchased  land  from  the 
Esquimaux,  and  in  1771,  was  busied  in  the  erection  of  various 
conveniences  for  a  settlement  at  Nain,  where  they  were  suffered 
to  reside  without  disturbance  from  the  natives  who  visited  them. 
In  1776,  they  formed  another  settlement  at  Okkak,  an  island,  about 
150  miles  to  the  northward  ;  and  one  year  after  a  third  settle- 
ment at  Hopedale,  to  the  south  of  Okkak,  completed  the  present 
list  of  the  Moravian  establishments  in  that  country. 

In  reading  their  own  account  of  these  and  similar  enterprises, 
we  cannot  avoid  being  struck  with  the  activity  and  perseverance 
of  the  missionaries ;  and  the  mere  philosopher  of  second  causes, 
would  look  upon  these,  aided  as  they  frequently  are  by  the  most 
fortunate  and  unlooked-for  conjuncture  of  circumstances,  as  suf- 
ficient to  explain  the  whole  secret  of  their  unexampled  success. 
But  the  Moravians  are  men  of  prayer.  They  wrestle  with  God, 
and  never  let  go  the  engine,  of  which  it  has  been  said,  that  it 
moves  Him  who  moves  the  universe.  Were  we  to  confine  our- 
selves to  a  mere  record  of  the  visible  events,  we  doubt  not  that 
many  would  receive  it  as  a  complete  history  of  their  missionary 
undertakings.  But  let  us  do  no  such  injustice  to  their  own  narra- 
tives, and  to  the  uniform  spirit  of  piety  and  dependence  which 
pervades  them.  Previously  to  the  grant  by  the  Privy  Council, 
Jens  Haven  tells  us,  that  the  mission  in  Labrador  was  the  con- 
stant subject  of  his  prayers  and  meditations,  and  that  with  prayer 
and  supplication  he  committed  himself,  and  the  cause  he  was  to 
serve,  unto  the  Lord.     In  the  progress  of  the  business  we  read 


ON    THE    MORAVIANS    VIEWED    AS    MISSIONARIES.  141 

much  of  his  self-examinations  and  confessions,  and  of  his  crying 
out  unto  the  Lord  for  help,  and  for  faith  to  commit  himself  and 
his  cause  to  Divine  protection.  This  is  a  fair  specimem  of  a  Mo- 
ravian missionary ;  and  these  are  the  deep  and  holy  exercises 
with  which  the  world  cannot  sympathize,  and  which  the  men  of 
the  world  cannot  banish  altogether  from  the  history  of  human 
affairs.  They  form  the  turning  point  of  the  machinery,  without 
which  nothing  would  be  accomplished  ;  and  they  who  smile  at 
the  occult  influence  which  lies  in  a  believer's  prayer,  should  be 
informed,  that  to  this  principle  alone  do  the  Moravian  preachers 
attribute  the  whole  of  that  sensible  effect  on  which  they  lavish 
all  their  admiration. 

Such  has  been  the  success  of  the  Moravians  in  these  three  set- 
tlements, that,  in  1788,  the  whole  number  of  the  baptized,  from  the 
commencement,  amounted  to  one  hundred  and  four,  of  which  sixty- 
three  were  then  alive ;  and  the  actual  number  of  baptized,  and 
of  candidates  for  baptism,  in  1812,  was  two  hundred  and  ninety- 
two.  They  have  translated  the  Gospels  into  the  Esquimaux  lan- 
guage, and  are  proceeding  with  the  other  books  of  the  New  Tes- 
tament. They  have  taught  many  of  the  natives  to  read  and  to 
write.  These  poor  barbarians  can  now  carry  on  an  epistolary 
correspondence  with  the  Moravians  in  this  country,  and  in  point 
of  scholarship,  and  of  civil  accomplishment,  are  farther  advanced 
than  the  great  mass  of  the  peasantry  in  England. 

The  following  extracts  from  their  periodical  accounts,  will  give 
a  more  correct  exhibition  of  the  spirit  and  proceedings  of  the  mis- 
sionaries, than  can  be  done  by  any  description. 

"Your  kind  letter  conveys  strong  proof  of  your  participation  in  the  work  of 
God  among  the  Esquimaux  here,  an  J  of  your  joy  at  all  the  good  which  the  Lord 
has  done  for  us.  You  also  mention  that  you  join  in  our  prayers  that  new  life 
from  God  would  visit  our  young  people.  We  hope  and  trust  with  you  that  the 
Lord  will,  in  his  own  time,  so  powerfully  awaken  them  by  his  grace  that  they 
can  no  longer  resist.  With  respect  to  the  adults,  we  ha%re  again  abundant 
cause  for  thankfulness  in  reporting  what  the  Lord  has  done  for  them  in  the  year 
past.  The  greater  part  are  advancing  to  a  more  perfect  knowledge  of  them- 
selves and  the  power  of  His  grace,  and  afford  thereby  a  proof  to  others  of  the 
necessity  of  conversion.  The  schools  have  been  attended,  during  the  past  win- 
ter, not.  without  blessing,  to  which  the  books  printed  in  the  Esquimaux  language, 
and  sent  to  us  by  you;  have  contributed  much.  Since  the  departure  of  the 
ship  last  year,  three  persons  have  been  admitted  to  the  Holy  Communion,  one 
adult  and  three  children  baptized,  and  six  admitted  as  candidates  for  baptism. 
Of  the  Esquimaux  belonging  to  our  congregation  here,  twenty-five  are  commu- 
nicants, one  of  whom  is  excluded ;  fourteen  baptized  adults,  of  whom  two  are 
excluded;  twenty-nine  baptized  children,  and  twenty  candidates  for  baptism; 
in  all  eighty-eight  persons.  We  cannot  precisely  state  the  number  of  Esqui- 
maux who  dwell  on  our  land,  as  some  of  them  purpose  removing  to  Okkak,  and 
one  family  from  the  heathen  has  come  to  us.  The  whole  number  may  be  about 
one  hundred  and  fifty.  A.s  the  highly  respected  British  and  Foreign  Bible  So- 
ciety has  again  intimated  their  willingness  to  print  part  of  the  Holy  Scriptures 
in  the  Esquimaux  language,  we  accept  their  oiler  with  much  gratitude,  and 
shall  send,  by  the  return  of  the  ship,  the  Gospels  according  to  St.  Matthew,  St. 


142  ON    THE    MORAVIANS    VIEWED    AS    MISSIONARIES. 

Mark,  and  St.  Luke,  which  our  late  brother  Burghardtwas  still  able  to  revise, 
requesting  you.  at  the  same  time,  to  salute  the  society  most  cordially  on  our 
behalf,  and  to  assure  them  of  our  great  esteem  and  veneration.  They  have  our 
best  wishes  and  prayers,  that  their  exertions  may  be  crowned  by  the  Lord  with 
abundant  success,  in  the  salvation  of  many  thousand  human  creatures  in  all 
parts  of  the  globe. 

"The  outward  wants  of  our  Esquimaux  have  been  but  scantily  supplied 
during  the  last  winter,  as  the  seal  fishing  in  nets  did  not  succeed,  only  sixty-six 
being  taken,  and  they  were  able  to  get  but  little  when  they  went  out  on  kajaks, 
or  on  the  thin  ice.  It  was  very  providential  that  the  supply  of  provisions  sent 
for  the  Esquimaux  by  the  ship  last  year,  enabled  us  to  relieve  their  most  press- 
ing necessities.  The  want  was  severely  felt  in  spring,  owing  to  the  long  con- 
tinuance of  the  cold,  with  much  snow,  which  prevented  the  seals  from  coming 
hither  till  late  in  the  season.  The  Esquimaux  had,  consequently,  to  be  sup- 
ported for  a  considerable  time  out  of  the  store,  which  occasioned  us  no  small 
uneasiness,  on  account  of  the  debts  which  they  unavoidably  contracted.  Nor 
were  these  circumstances,  as  may  be  supposed,  without  a  degree  of  influence 
upon  the  state  of  their  minds,  though  we  cannot  say  that  they  were  productive 
of  abiding  detriment.  They  felt  grateful,  that  by  the  Lord's  mercy  they  were 
preserved  from  perishing  through  famine."  Per.  Ace.  United  Brethren,  No. 
lxiv.  p.  254 

The  above  is  from  Nain  ;  the  following  is  from  Hopedale. 

"  Your  kind  expressions  concerning  us  and  our  labors  filled  our  hearts  with 
gratitude.  We  can  assure  you,  dear  Brethren,  that  the  daily  mercies  of  our 
Saviour  still  attend  us,  both  in  our  external  and  internal  concerns.  Poor  and 
defective  as  we  feel  ourselves  to  be,  he  has  not  taken  his  grace  and  spirit  from 
us,  but  forgiven  us  all  sin,  daily  and  richly  supported  and  helped  us  in  our 
labors,  comforted  us  in  all  distress,  preserved  us  in  peace  and  brotherly  love,  and 
excited  in  us  all  an  ardent  desire  to  live  unto  and  serve  Him  with  all  our  hearts. 

41  Several  of  us  have  been  ailing,  but  he  approved  himself  our  kind  physi- 
cian, and  nothing  essential  has  been  neglected  in  the  performance  of  our  daily 
duties  through  illness.  Constant  communion  with  Him  is  the  source  of  all  spir- 
itual life  and  strength,  and  we  pray  him  to  lead  us  more  and  more  into  that 
blessed  track. 

"  With  thanks  to  Him  we  are  able  to  say,  that  the  walk  of  most,  of  our  Es- 
quimaux has  been  such  as  to  give  us  heartfelt  joy.  Our  Saviour  has  led  them 
as  the  good  shepherd  in  the  way  of  life  everlasting,  and  by  his  Spirit  taught 
them  to  know  that  without  him  they  can  do  nothing  good.  They  set  a  value 
upon  the  word  of  God,  and  desire  in  ail  respects  to  live  more  in  conformity  to 
it.  The  love  of  our  Saviour  towards  them  excites  their  wonder,  and  they 
sometimes  complain  with  tears,  that  they  do  not  love  him,  and  give  joy  unto 
liim  as  they  ought  for  his  great  mercy  vouchsafed  unto  them.  The  word  of 
his  cross,  sufferings,  and  death,  melts  their  hearts,  and  causes  them  truly  to  re- 
pent of,  and  abhor  sin,  which  nailed  him  to  the  cross,  and  to  mourn  and  cry  for 
pardon.  Instances  of  this  blessed  effect  of  the  doctrine  of  a  crucified  Saviour 
we  have  seen  in  our  public  meetings,  in  our  private  converse  with  them,  and  in 
the  schools.  The  latter  have  been  kept  up  with  all  possible  punctuality  and 
diligence. 

••  We  can  declare  with  truth,  that  Jesus  Christ,  our  Saviour,  has  been  the 
heart's  desire  of  us  all,  towards  whom  we  wish  to  press  forward,  that  we  may 
live  to  Him  and  enjoy  more  of  His  sweet  communion.  Notwithstanding  all 
weakness  and  deficiency  still  observable  in  our  small  congregation,  we  have 
great  reason  to  rejoice  over  most  of  them,  especially  over  the  communicants. 
The  celebration  of  the  Lord's  Supper  is  to  them  a  most  important  and  blessed 
transaction.     We  have  re-admitted  to  it  those,  whom  you  may  remember  last 


ON    THE    MORAVIANS    VIEWED    AS    MISSIONARIES.  143 

year  to  have  fallen  into  foolish  and  superstitious  practices  during  a  time  of 
sickness  and  frequent  deaths,  but  who  truly  repented  of  their  error. 

'•  We  pray  for  more  spiritual  life  among  our  youth,  in  whom  we  have  dis- 
covered too  many  traces  of  levity. 

"  Two  adults  and  two  children  have  been  baptized,  two  girls,  baptized  as 
children,  were  received  into  the  congregation,  three  were  made  partakers  of  the 
Lord's  Sapper,  three  became  candidates  for  it,  and  one  a  candidate  for  baptism. 
One  child  died  during  the  year  past.  At  the  conclusion  of  the  year  our  con- 
gregation consists  of  eighty-eight  Esquimaux  brethren  and  sisters,  of  whom 
thirty-one  are  communicants.  One  hundred  and  twenty-two  persons  lived  on 
our  land.  We  have  had  no  addition  from  among  the  heathen,  none  having  re- 
sided in  our  neighborhood. 

"  To  the  worthy  British  and  Foreign  Bible  Society  we  beg  you  to  present 
our  most  cordial  thanks,  for  the  Gospel  of  St.  John  in  the  Esquimaux  language, 
printed  and  bound  up  in  the  best  manner.  Our  hearts  are  filled  with  gratitude 
towards  them  for  this  most  valuable  donation,  and  we  pray  the  Lord  richly  to 
reward  them  for  it,  and  to  cause  all  their  labors  of  love  to  succeed,  for  His 
glory  and  the  welfare  of  mankind.  Our  people  take  this  little  book  with  them 
to  the  islands  when  they  go  out  to  seek  provisions,  and  in  their  tents,  or  snow- 
houses,  spend  their  evenings  in  reading  it  with  great  edification  and  blessing. 
They  often  beg  us  to  thank  the  Society  in  their  name  when  we  write  to  Eng- 
land. 

"  We  feel  very  sensibly  the  loss  of  private  letters,  and  of  the  diaries  and 
accounts  of  our  congregations  and  missions  by,  the  stoppage  of  communication 
between  England  and  the  Continent.  O  that  the  Lord  would  hold  His  hand 
over  our  settlements  in  Germany,  since  it  appears  as  if  they  were  threatened 
by  a  new  war. 

"  As  you  approve  of  the  building  of  a  store-house  for  our  Esquimaux,  we 
shall  now  take  steps  to  complete  that  work." — Per.  Ac.  lxiv.  p.  260. 

*  Let  it  be  observed,  that  Okkak,  the  most  northerly  of  the 
three  settlements,  lies  in  a  latitude  little  short  of  58°  N.  and  2£° 
to  the  south  of  Cape  Chudleigh  ;  that  on  doubling  this  Cape,  the 
coast  trends  S.  S.  W.  as  far  as  to  58|°  of  N.  lat.  ;  that  it  then 
takes  a  sweep  to  the  northward,  and  thus  forms  a  bay  named,  in 
the  accounts  of  these  missionaries,  Ungava  bay.  The  line  of  the 
voyage  extends  then  from  Okkak,  along  the  coast  of  Labrador,  to 
the  Cape  Chudleigh  Islands,  from  whence  it  takes  a  south  and 
westerly  direction  to  the  bottom  of  Ungava  Bay.  They  were 
induced  to  undertake  it  by  a  statement  of  the  Esquimaux  visitors, 
who  occasionally  repaired  to  the  establishments  already  formed, 
and  reported  that  the  main  body  of  this  nation  lived  near  and  be- 
yond Cape  Chudleigh.  In  addition  to  these  accounts  they  re- 
ceived the  most  earnest  applications  to  form  a  new  settlement  to 
the  northward,  applications  to  which  they  felt  themselves  the  more 
inclined  to  listen,  as  the  country  around  their  present  establish- 
ments was  very  thinly  inhabited,  and  it  appeared  that  the 
aim  of  the  mission,  to  convert  the  Esquimaux  to  Christianity, 
would  be  much  better  obtained,  if  access  could  be  had  to  the  main 
body  of  the  Indians,  from  which  the  roving  inhabitants  appeared 
to  be  mere  stragglers. 

Having  obtained  the  consent  of  their  superiors  in  Europe,  a  com- 
pany was  formed  for  the  voyage,  under  the  superintendence  of 

*  The  work  reviewed  in  my  paper  was  the  "  Journal  of  a  Voyage  from  Okkak." 


144  ON    THE    MORAVIANS    VIEWED    AS    MISSIONARIES. 

Brother  Kohlmeister,  who  was  eminently  qualified  for  the  charge, 
by  a  residence  of  seventeen  years  in  Labrador,  during  which  time 
he  had  acquired  an  accurate  knowledge  of  the  Esquimaux  lan- 
guage, and  was  deservedly  respected  and  beloved  both  by  Chris- 
tians and  heathens.  Brother  Kmock  accompanied  him  in  the  voy- 
age, and  their  crew  consisted  of  four  Esquimaux  families  belong- 
ing to  Hopedale.  Having  commended  themselves  in  prayer  to 
the  grace  and  protecting  care  of  God,  their  Saviour,  and  to  the 
kind  remembrance  of  their  dear  fellow  missionaries,  they  set  soil 
from  Okkak,  in  a  large  decked  boat,  on  the  24th  of  June,  1811. 

In  their  progress  they  met  with  many  interruptions  from  large 
fields  of  ice,  which  often  presented  a  threatening  appearance. 
They  kept  in  general  close  to  the  shore,  and  had  to  work  their 
way  through  numerous  straits,  formed  by  the  small  islands  which 
lie  scattered  along  the  coast  in  great  numbers,  sometimes  sleeping 
on  board,  and  at  others,  pitching  their  tent  on  shore.  They  often 
met  with  very  wild  and  singular  exhibitions  of  scenery  ;  and  the 
Moravians,  ever  observant  of  all  that  is  interesting  in  the  appear- 
ances of  nature,  do  not  fail  to  gratify  the  reader  by  their  descrip- 
tion of  them.  The  following  is  a  specimen  of  the  notice  they  take 
of  these  things,  and  the  way  in  which  they  record  them. 

"  June  25th. — We  rose  soon  after  two  o'clock,  and  rowed  out  of  the  Ikkera- 
sak  with  a  fair  wind.  The  sea  was  perfectly  calm  and  smooth.  Brother 
Kmock  rowed  in  the  small  boat  along  the  foot  of  the  mountains  of  Kammayok, 
sometimes  going  on  shore  while  the  large  boat  was  making  but  little  way, 
keeping  out  at  some  distance  to  avoid  the  rocks.  The  outline  of  this  chain  of 
mountains  exhibits  the  most  fanciful  figures.  At  various  points  the  rocks  de- 
scend abruptly  into  the  sea,  presenting  horrid  precipices.  The  strand  is  covered 
with  a  black  sand.  At  the  height  of  about,  fifty  feet  from  the  sea,  the  rocks 
have  veins  of  red,  yellow,  and  green  stone,  running  horizontally  and  parallel, 
and  sometimes  in  an  undulated  form.  Above  these  they  present  the  appear- 
ance of  a  magnificent  colonnade,  or  rather  of  buttresses,  supporting  a  gothic 
building  varying  in  height  and  thickness,  and  here  and  there  intersected  by  wide 
and  deep  chasms  and  glens  running  far  inland  between  the  mountains.  Loose 
stones  above  have  in  some  places  the  appearance  of  statues,  and  the  superior 
region  exhibits  various  kinds  of  grotesque  shapes.  It  is  by  far  the  most  singu- 
lar and  picturesque  chain  of  mountains  on  this  coast.  To  the  highest  part  of  it 
we  gave  the  name  of  St.  Paul's,  as  it  is  not  unlike  that  cathedral  when  viewed 
at  a  distance,  with  its  dome  and  two  towers." — p.  14. 

On  the  day  following  they  met  with  some  of  the  believing  Es- 
quimaux, who  were  on  their  summer  excursion,  at  which  time 
they  have  many  opportunities  of  mingling  with  the  unconverted  of 
their  own  nation.  It  refreshes  our  hearts  to  hear,  that  the  wilds 
of  a  savage  country  exhibit  a  scene  so  soothing  as  that  which 
these  worthy  men  realized  upon  this  occasion. 

"  The  number  of  the  congregation,  including  our  boat's  company,  amounted 
to  about  fifty.  Brother  Kohlmeister  first  addressed  them  by  greeting  them  from 
their  brethren  at  Okkak,  and  expressing  our  joy  at  finding  them  well  in  health, 
and  our  hopes  that  they  were  all  walking  worthy  of  their  christian  profession, 


ON    THE    MORAVIANS    VIEWED    AS    MISSIONARIES.  145 

as  a  good  example  to  their  heathen  neighbors.  Then  the  Litany  was  read,  and 
a  spirit  of  true  devotion  pervaded  the  whole  assembly. 

"  Our  very  hearts  rejoieed  in  this  place,  which  had  but  lately  been  a  den  of 
murderers,  dedicated,  as  it  were,  by  the  angekoks,  or  sorcerers,  to  the  service 
of  the  devil,  to  hear  the  cheerful  voices  of  converted  heathen  most  melodiously 
sounding  forth  the  praises  of  God,  and  giving  glory  to  the  name  of  Jesus,  their 
Redeemer.  Peace  and  cheerful  countenances  dwelt  in  the  tents  of  the  believ- 
ing Esquimaux." — p.  1G. 

What  else  is  it  than  the  spreading  of  this  moral  cultivation 
over  the  vast  and  dreary  extent  of  that  pagan  wilderness,  which 
is  everywhere  around  us,  that  can  lead  to  the  accomplishment  of 
the  following  prophecies  ?  "  Israel  shall  blossom  and  bud  and 
fill  the  face  of  the  world  with  fruit."  "  The  wilderness  and  sol- 
itary place  shall  be  glad  for  them,  and  the  desert  shall  rejoice  and 
blossom  as  the  rose."  "  In  the  wilderness  shall  waters  break 
out,  and  streams  in  the  desert,  and  the  parched  ground  shall  be- 
come a  pool,  and  the  thirsty  land  springs  of  water.  In  the  hab- 
itation of  dragons  where  each  lay,  shall  be  grass  with  reeds  and 
rushes." 

They  were  detained  from  the  3d  to  the  15th  of  July,  in  Nulla- 
tartok  bay,  by  the  quantity  of  drift  ice  which  set  in  upon  the  coast. 
This  gave  them  time  for  exploring  the  neighborhood  ;  and  these 
observant  men  neglect  nothing  in  their  power  that  can  be  turned 
to  useful  information  for  future  travellers.  They  make  minutes 
of  the  bays,  points,  and  islands,  with  which  they  are  made  ac- 
quainted by  the  natives.  They  record  the  face  of  the  country, 
and  the  appearance  of  its  mineralogical  productions.  They  take 
great  interest  in  relating  the  manners  and  peculiar  practices  of 
the  people.  They  make  collections  of  plants,  and  are  amused 
with  the  examination  of  them.  In  a  word,  they  notice  all  and  re- 
cord all,  which  can  give  interest  to  the  narrative  of  an  accom- 
plished traveller;  and  the  only  additions  which  they  graft  upon 
all  this,  are  a  constant  recognition  of  God,  and  an  eye  steadily 
fixed  on  his  glory.  Can  it  be  this  which  has  so  long  repelled  the 
attention  of  worldly  men  from  their  labors  and  enterprises  ?  which 
made  their  good  be  evil  spoken  of?  and  which,  till  within  these 
few  years,  restrained  them  from  offering  to  the  public  a  mass  of 
solid  information  that  has  now  perished  from  the  memory,  and 
cannot  be  recalled  ? 

The  following  is  a  specimen  of  the  manner  in  which  they  min- 
gle the  business  of  piety,  with  the  business  of  ordinary  travellers. 

"  Perceiving  that  our  abode  in  this  place  might  be  of  some  duration,  we  for 
the  first  time  pitched  our  tents  on  shore.  Our  morning  and  evening  devotion 
was  attended  by  the  whole  party,  and  on  Sundays  we  read  the  Litany  and 
conducted  the  service  in  the  usual  way,  which  proved  to  us  and  our  Esquimaux, 
of  great  comfort,  and  encouragement  in  all  difficulties.  We  were  detained 
here  by  the  ice  from  the  3d  to  the  loth,  and  our  faith  and  patience  were  fre- 
quently put  to  the  trial.  Meanwhile  we  found  much  pleasure  in  walking  up 
the  ucclivities  of  the  hills  and  into  the  fine  green  and  flowery  valleys  around  us." 
—p.  22. 

19 


146  ON    THE    MORAVIANS    VIEWED    AS    MISSIONARY.-. 

M  6th. — In  the  evening  we  met  in  Jonathan's  tent.  Brother  Kohlmeister  ad- 
dressed the  company,  and  reminded  them  that  to-day  the  holy  communion 
would  be  celebrated  in  our  congregations,  which  we  could  not  do  in  this  place 
under  present  circumstances.  Then,  kneeling  down,  he  offered  up  a  fervent 
prayer,  entreating  the  Lord  not  to  forget  us  in  this  wilderness,  but  to  give  us  to 
feel  His  all-reviving  presence,  and  to  feed  our  hungry  and  thirsty  souls  out  of 
the  fulness  of  his  grace.  A  comfortable  sense  of  His  love  and  peace,  filled  all 
our  hearts  on  this  occasion.'  " 

On  the  16th,  they  advanced  to  Nachvak,  and  the  scene  of 
magnificence  which  opened  upon  them  here,  is  well  described  by 
our  travellers. 

"16th. — The  view  we  had  of  the  magnificent  mountains  of  Nachvak,  espe- 
cially about  sunrise,  afforded  us  and  our  Esquimaux  great  gratification.  Their 
south-east  extremity  much  resembles  Saddle  island,  near  Okkak,  being  high, 
steep,  and  of  singular  shape.  These  mountains  in  general  are  not  unlike  those 
of  Kanmayok  for  picturesque  outline.  In  one  place  tremendous  precipices 
form  a  vast  amphitheatre,  surmounted  by  a  ledge  of  green  sod,  which  seemed 
to  be  the  resort  of  an  immense  number  of  sea-gulls  and  other  fowls  never  in- 
terrupted by  the  intrusion  of  man.  They  flew  with  loud  screams  backwards 
and  forwards  over  our  heads,  as  if  to  warn  off  such  unwelcome  visitors.  In 
another  place  a  narrow  chasm  opens  into  the  mountain  widening  into  a  lagoon, 
the  surrounding  rocks  resembling  the  ruins  of  a  large  gothic  building,  with  the 
green  ocean  for  its  pavement,  and  the  sky  for  its  dome.  The  weather  being  fine, 
and  the  sun  cheering  us  with  his  bright  rays,  after  a  cold  and  sleepless  night, 
we  seemed  to  acquire  new  vigor  by  the  contemplation  of  the  grand  features  of 
nature  around  us.  We  now  perceived  some  Esquimaux  with  a  woman's  boat 
in  a  small  bay,  preparing  to  steer  for  Nachvak.  They  fired  their  pieces,  and 
called  to  us  to  join  them,  as  they  had  discovered  a  stranded  whale.  Going  on 
shore  to  survey  the  remains  of  this  huge  animal,  we  found  it  by  no  means  a 
pleasant  sight.  It  lay  upon  the  rocks,  occupying  a  space  thirty  feet  in  diame- 
ter, but  was  much  shattered,  and  in  a  decaying  state.  Our  people,  however- 
cut  off"  a  quantity  of  blubber  from  its  lips.  The  greater  part  of  the  blubber  of, 
this  fish  was  lost,  as  the  Esquimaux  had  no  means  of  conveying  it  to  Okkak." 
—p.  26. 

The  following  description  of  the  manner  in  which  the  Esqui- 
maux catch  salmon-trout,  is,  we  believe,  a  novelty. 

"  The  Esquimaux  about  Okkak  and  Saeglek,  catch  them  in  winter  under  the 
ice  by  spearing.  For  this  purpose  they  make  two  holes  in  the  ice  about  eight 
inches  in  diameter,  and  six  feet  asunder  in  a  direction  from  north  to  south.  The. 
northern  hole  they  screen  from  the  sun  by  a  bank  of  snow  about  four  feet  in 
height,  raised  in  a  semi-circle  round  its  southern  edge,  and  form  another  similar 
bank  on  the  north  side  of  the  southern  hole,  sloped  in  such  a  manner  as  to  re- 
flect the  rays  of  the  sun  into  it.  The  Esquimaux  then  lies  down  with  his  face 
close  to  the  northern  aperture,  beneath  which  the  water  is  strongly  illuminated 
by  the  sunbeams  entering  at  the  southern.  In  his  left  hand  he  holds  a  red 
string,  with  which  he  plays  in  the  water,  to  allure  the  fish,  and  in  his  right  a 
spear,  ready  to  strike  thein  as  they  approach.  In  this  manner  they  soon  take 
as  many  as  they  want." — p.  28. 

At  Nachvak  they  had  frequent  opportunities  of  converse  with 
the  natives,  and  we  know  of  no  question  more  interesting  than 
that  which  proposes  the  consideration  of  the  best  method  of  ad- 


ON    THE    MORAVIANS    VIEWED    AS    MISSIONARIES.  147 

dressing  Christianity  to  the  minds  of  men  totally  unfurnished 
with  any  preparatory  conceptions  upon  the  subject.  On  other 
subjects  of  inquiry,  the  rashness  of  the  theorizing  spirit  is  exploded, 
and  all  speculation  is  made  to  vanish  before  the  evidence  of  ex- 
periment. To  the  evidence  on  this  question  the  Moravians  are 
making  daily  additions :  And  the  whole  history  of  their  proceed- 
ings bears  testimony  to  the  fact,  that  the  Gospel  is  never  preached 
in  power  but  when  it  is  preached  in  simplicity  ;  that  the  refine- 
ments of  men  do  but  enfeeble  the  impression  of  it ;  and  that  the 
word  of  truth,  as  it  came  pure  from  the  mouth  of  Christ,  and  of 
His  apostles,  may  be  addressed  to  savages  at  the  very  lowest 
degree  in  the  scale  of  civilization.  When  taken  in  connection 
with  this  principle,  we  look  upon  the  first  meeting  of  a  Christian 
missionary  with  savages,  as  a  circumstance  possessing  a  higher 
interest  than  any  other  thing  that  can  be  recorded  of  the  inter- 
course of  man  with  man  ;  and  the  interest  is  considerably  height- 
ened, when,  instead  of  the  accomplished  missionary,  it  is  the  Chris- 
tianized heathen,  who  has  himself  lately  experienced  the  love  of 
the  truth,  and  is  become  subject  to  its  power,  that  addresses  the 
words  of  salvation  to  the  unawakened  among  his  own  country- 
men.    The  following  is  a  specimen. 

M  They  (the  natives)  received  the  discourses  and  exhortations  of  the  mis- 
sionary with  reverential  attention,  but  those  of  their  own  countrymen  with  still 
greater  eagerness,  and  we  hope  not  without  benefit.  Jonas  once  addressed 
them  thus : — '  We  were  but  lately  as  ignorant  as  you  are  now  :  we  were  long 
unable  to  understand  the  comfortable  words  of  the  Gospel :  we  had  neither 
ears  to  hear,  nor  hearts  to  receive  them,  till  Jesus  by  His  power  opened  our 
hearts  and  ears.  Now  we  know  what  Jesus  has  done  for  us,  and  how  great  the 
happiness  of  those  souls  is,  who  come  unto  Him,  who  love  Him  as  their 
Saviour,  and  know  that  they  shall  not  be  lost  when  this  life  is  past.  Without 
this  we  live  in  constant  fear  of  death.  You  will  enjoy  the  same  happiness  if 
you  turn  to  and  believe  in  Jesus.  We  are  not  surprised  that  you  do  not  yet 
understand  us.  We  were  once  like  you,  but  now  thank  Jesus  our  Redeemer, 
with  tears  of  joy,  that  He  has  revealed  Himself  unto  us.'  Thus,  with  cheerful 
countenances  and  great  energy,  did  these  Christian  Esquimaux  praise  and 
glorify  the  name  of  Christ  our  Saviour,  and  declare  what  He  had  done  for  their 
souls,  exhorting  the  heathen  likewise  to  believe. 

"  The  above  address  seemed  to  make  a  deep  impression  on  the  minds  of  all 
present.  One  of  their  leaders  or  captains  exclaimed  with  great  eagerness  in 
presence  of  them  all, — '  I  am  determined  to  be  converted  to  Jesus.'  His  name 
is  Onalik.  He  afterwards  called  upon  Brother  Kohlmeister,  and  inquired 
whether  it  was  the  same  to  which  of  the  three  settlements  he  removed,  as  it 
was  his  firm  determination  to  become  a  true  believer.  Brother  Kohlmeister 
answered,  that  it  was  indifferent  where  he  lived,  if  he  were  onlv*  converted, 
and  became  a  child  of  God,  and  an  heir  of  life  eternal.  Another  named  Ful- 
lugaksoak  made  the  same  declaration,  and  added  that  he  would  no  longer  live 
among  the  heathen. 

"  Though  the  very  fickle  disposition  of  the  heathen  Esquimaux  might  cause 
some  doubts  to  arise  in  our  minds  as  to  their  putting  these  good  resolutions  into 
practice,  yet  we  hope  that  the  seed  of  the  word  of  God,  sown  in  this  place, 
may  not  have  altogether  fallen  upon  barren  ground." — p.  30. 


148  ON    THE    MORAVIANS    VIEWED    AS    MISSIONARIES. 

In  their  progress  northward  to  Cape  Chudleigh,  they  fall  in. 
with  other  parties  of  the  natives ;  and  on  the  22d  of  July  we 
have  the  following  description  of  an  Esquimaux  feast,  at  which 
the  missionary  himself  addressed  the  heathen. 

"  22d. — The  contrary  wind  forbidding  our  departure,  Brother  Kohlmeister, 
accompanied  by  Jonathan  Jonas,  and  Kukekina,  walked  across  the  countr}'  to 
the  N.  W.  bay,  to  return  their  visit.  When  they  saw  them  coming  at.  a  dis- 
tance, they  fired  their  pieces  to  direct  them  to  the  tents,  and  came  joyfully  to 
meet  the  missionary  and  his  party.  Nothing  could  exceed  the  cordiality  with 
which  they  received  them.  A  kettle  was  immediately  put  on  the  fire  to  cook  sal- 
mon-trout, and  all  were  invited  to  partake,  which  was  the  more  readily  accepted, 
as  the  length  of  the  walk  had  created  an  appetite,  the  keenness  of  which  over- 
came all  squeamishness.  To  do  these  good  people  justice,  their  kettle  was 
rather  cleaner  than  usual,  the  dogs  having  licked  it  well,  and  the  fish  was  fresh 
and  well  dressed.  To  honor  the  missionary,  a  box  was  placed  for  him  to  sit 
upon,  and  the  Hsh  were  served  up  to  each  upon  a  flat  stone  instead  of  a  plate. 
After  dinner,  Brother  Kohlmeister,  in  acknowledgment  for  their  civility,  gave 
to  each  of  the  women  two  needles,  and  a  small  portion  of  tobacco  to  each  man, 
with  which  they  were  highly  delighted. 

"  All  of  them  being  seated,  a  very  lively  and  unreserved  conversation  took 
place,  concerning  the  only  way  of  salvation  through  Jesus  Christ,  and  the  ne- 
cessity of  conversion.  With  John  and  his  mother  Mary,  Brother  Kohlmeister 
spoke  very  seriously,  and  represented  to  them  the  danger  of  their  state  as  apos- 
tates from  the  faith,  but  they  seem  blinded  by  Satan,  and  determined  to  per- 
sist in  their  heathenish  life.  The  Esquimaux  now  ottered  to  convey  the  party 
across  the  bay  in  their  skin-boat,  which  was  accepted.  Almost  all  of  them  ac- 
companied the  boat,  and  met  with  a  very  friendly  reception  from  our  boat's 
company.  In  the  evening,  after  some  hymns  had  been  sung  by  our  people, 
Jonas  addressed  them  and  the  heathen  Esquimaux,  in  a  short  nervous  discourse 
on  the  blessedness  of  being  reconciled  unto  God. 

41  Kummaktorvik  bay  runs  N.  E.  and  S.  W.,  and  is  defended  by  some  islands 
from  the  sea.  It  is  about  four  or  five  miles  long,  and  surrounded  by  high 
mountains,  with  some  pleasant  plains  at  their  foot  covered  with  verdure.  Its 
distance  from  Nachvak  is  about  twelve  miles.  This  chain  of  mountains,  aa 
will  be  hereafter  mentioned,  may  be  seen  from  Kangertlualuksoak,  in  Ungava 
bay,  which  is  a  collateral  proof  that  the  neck  of  land  terminated  to  the  N.  by 
Cape  Chudleigh,  is  of  no  great  width.  Both  the  Nain  and  Okkak  Esquimaux 
frequently  penetrate  far  enough  inland  to  find  the  rivers  taking  a  westerly  direc- 
tion, consequently  towards  the  Ungava  country.  They  even  now  and  then 
have  reached  the  woods  skirting  the  estuaries  of  George  and  South  rivers." — 
p.  35. 

On  the  2d  of  August,  they  passed  a  strait  among  the  islands 
of  Cape  Chudleigh,  when  the  coast  takes  a  S.  S.  W.  direction. 
At  this  place  the  tides  rise  to  an  uncommon  height.  The  coast 
s  low,  with  gently  sloping  hills,  and  the  country  looks  pleasant, 
with  many  berry-bearing  plants  and  bushes.  It  is  from  this  point 
of  the  voyage,  that  they  seem  to  enter  upon  new  ground,  for  at  a 
very  great  distance  to  the  N.  W.  they  descried  a  large  island 
named  Akpatok,  which,  according  to  the  statement  of  the  Es- 
quimaux, incloses  the  whole  gulf  or  bay  towards  the  sea,  consists 
of  high  land,  and  is  connected  to  the  western  continent  at  low 
water  by  an  isthmus.     Now  it  is  the  North  coast  of  this  island 


ON    THE    MORAVIANS    VIEWL'D    A3    MISSIONARIES.  149 

which  appears  to  be  the  line  laid  down  in  maps  and  charts  as  the 
coast  of  America  to  the  south  of  Hudson's  Straits.  So  that  a 
large  inland  bay,  separating  the  district  of  Ungava,  from  the 
island  of  Akpatok,  and  which,  from  the  map  accompanying  this 
account,  is  made  to  extend  from  W.  longitude  65°  45'  to  70°,  and 
from  N.  latitude  60°  15'  to  about  58°,  appears  to  be  an  expanse 
of  water  wholly  unnoticed  by  former  navigators.  At  the  bottom 
of  this  bay  lies  the  Ungava  country,  and  our  party,  in  their  pro- 
gress towards  it,  had  intercourse  with  the  natives  on  the  coast. 
Our  missionary  took  an  early  occasion  to  make  known  his  object 
in  visiting  them. 

"  Brother  Kohlmeister  visited  the  people  in  their  tents.  They  were  about 
fifty  in  number,  men  women,  and  children.  He  informed  them  that  nothing 
could  induce  the  missionaries  to  come  into  this  country  but  love  to  the  poor 
heathen,  and  an  ardent  desire  to  make  them  acquainted  with  their  Creator  and 
Redeemer,  that  through  Him  they  might  attain  to  happiness  in  time  and 
eternity.  Some  seemed  to  listen  with  attention,  but  the  greater  part  under- 
stood nothing  of  what  was  said.  This  of  course  did  not  surprise  us,  as  most 
of  them  were  quite  ignorant  heathen,  who  had  never  before  seen  a  European. 
They,  however,  raised  a  shout  of  joy,  when  we  informed  them  that  we  would 
come  and  visit  them  in  their  own  country.  Many  were  not  satisfied  with  view- 
ing us  on  every  side  with  marks  of  great  astonishment,  but  came  close  up  to  us 
and  pawed  us  all  over.  At  taking  leave  we  presented  them  with  a  few  trifles, 
which  excited  among  them  the  greatest  pleasure  and  thankfulness." — p.  47. 

A  few  days  afterwards  we  have  the  following  specimen  of  the 
tides  in  this  bay. 

"  7th. — On  rising,  to  our  great  surprise,  we  found  ourselves  left  by  the  tide 
in  a  shallow  pool  of  water  surrounded  by  rocky  hills,  nor  could  we  at  all  dis- 
cover the  situation  of  our  skin-boat,  till  after  the  water  had  begun  to  rise,  and 
raised  us  above  the  banks  of  our  watery  dungeon,  when  with  great  astonish- 
ment, not  having  been  able  to  find  it  on  the  surface  of  the  sea,  and  accidentalh- 
directing  our  eyes  upwards,  we  saw  it  perched  upon  the  top  of  a  considerable 
eminence,  and  apparently  on  shore.  We  then  landed,  and  ascending  a  rising 
ground,  beheld  with  some  terror,  the  wonderful  changes  occasioned  by  the 
tides.  Our  course  was  visible  to  the  extent  of  two  or  three  English  miles,  but 
the  sea  had  left  it,  and  we  were  obliged  to  remain  in  this  dismal  "place  till  about 
noon  before  the  water  had  risen  sufficiently  to  carry  us  out.  We  now  bewail 
to  entertain  fears  lest  we  might  not  always  be  able  to  find  proper  harbors  so 
as  to  avoid  being  left  high  and  dry  at  low  water,  for  having  anchored  in  nine 
fathoms  last  night,  we  were  left  in  one  and  a  half  this  morning.  Uttakivok 
and  Kukekina  were  with  us  on  shore.  The  eminence  on  which  we  stood  was 
overgrown  with  vaccinia  and  other  plants,  and  we  saw  among  them  marks  of 
its  being  visited  by  hares.  Near  the  summit  was  a  spot  covered  by  red  sand 
which  stained  one's  fingers,  and  among  it  were  fragments  of  a  substance  re- 
sembling cast  iron.  We  seemed  here  to  stand  ou  a  peninsula  connected  bv  an 
isthmus  with  another  island,  or  with  the  continent,  but  probably  at  high  water 
it  may  be  a  separate  island." — p.  51. 

In  a  few  days  they  reached  Kangertlualuksoak  Bay,  to  which 
they  gave  the  name  of  George  river,  after  having  formally  taken 
possession  of  the  country  in  the  name  of  George  III.,  whom  thev 
designate  the  Great  Monarch  of  all  those  territories,  in  their  ex- 


150  ON    THE    MORAVIANS    VIEWED    AS    MISSIONARIES. 

planation  to  the  natives  of  a  tablet  solemnly  raised  in  commemo- 
ration of  this  voyage.  We  do  not  see  the  necessity  of  this  trans- 
action, and  confess  that  our  feelings  of  justice  somewhat  revolted 
at  it.  How  George  III.  should  be  the  rightful  monarch  of  a  ter- 
ritory whose  inhabitants  never  saw  a  European  before,  is  some- 
thing more  than  we  can  understand.  We  trust  that  the  maraud- 
ing policy  of  other  limes,  is  now  gone  by ;  and  that  the  transac- 
tion in  question  is  nothing  more  than  an  idle  ceremony.  At  all 
events  we  do  think  that  our  worthy  missionaries  have,  in  this  in- 
stance, made  an  unwitting  departure  from  the  character  which 
belongs  to  them  ;  and  we  implore  them,  as  they  value  the  appro- 
bation of  all  right-minded  Christians,  to  keep  by  the  simplicity  of 
their  one  object,  and  never  to  venture  one  single  footstep  on  the 
dubious  ground  of  this  world's  politics.  The  following  simple  ad- 
venture is  infinitely  more  in  accordance  with  our  minds. 

"  After  dining  on  part  of  the  venison,  we  returned  to  the  great  boat.  On 
the  passage  we  thought  we  perceived,  at  a  considerable  distance,  a  black  bear, 
and  Uttakiyok,  elated  with  his  recent  success,  hoped  to  gain  new  laurels.  He 
entered  his  kayak,  and  proceded  as  cautiously  as  possible  along  the  shore 
towards  the  spot,  landed,  climbed  the  hill  so  as  not  to  be  observed,  but  when  he 
had  just  got  within  gun-shot,  perceived  that  his  bear  was  a  black  stone.  This 
adventure  furnished  the  company  with  merriment  for  the  remainder  of  the 
voyage  to  the  boat." — p.  57. 

They  determined  upon  the  mouth  of  George  river  as  a  suitable 
place  for  a  settlement. 

"  12th. — Having  finished  reconnoitring  the  neighborhood,  and  gathered  all 
the  information  concerning  it  which  our  means  would  admit,  and  likewise  fixed 
upon  the  green  slope  or  terrace  above  described  as  the  most  suitable  place  for 
a  settlement,  on  account  of  the  abundance  of  wood  in  its  neighborhood,  we 
made  preparations  to  proceed.  Uttakiyok,  who  had  spent  more  than  one  winter 
in  the  Ungava  country,  assured  us  that  there  was  here  an  ample  supply  of  pro- 
visions both  in  summer  and  winter,  which  Jonathan  also  credited  from  his 
own  observation.  The  former  likewise  expressed  himself  convinced  that  if  we 
would  form  a  settlement  here,  many  Esquimaux  would  come  to  us  from  all 
parts.  We  ourselves  were  satisfied  that  Europeans  might  find  the  means  of 
existence  in  this  place,  as  it  was  accessible  for  ships,  and  had  wood  and  water 
in  plenty.  As  for  Esquimaux,  there  appeared  no  want  of  those  things  upon 
which  they  live,  the  sea  abounding  with  white  fish,  seals,  sea-fowl,  &c,  and 
the  land  with  reindeer,  hares,  bears,  and  other  animals.  The  people  from  Kil- 
linek  declared  their  intention  of  removing  hither,  if  we  would  come  and  dwell 
among  them,  and  are  even  now  in  the  habit  of  visiting  this  place  every  sum- 
mer. Our  own  company  even  expressed  a  wish  to  spend  the  winter  here." — 
p.  57. 

The  season  was  now  far  advanced,  and  the  danger  of  being 
overtaken  by  winter  before  they  completed  their  return  to  Okkak, 
began  to  press  upon  them.  But  they  had  not  yet  got  to  the  bot- 
tom of  the  bay  which  they  had  fixed  upon  as  the  final  object  of 
their  voyage.  The  courage  of  their  party  was  beginning  to  fail, 
and  the  missionaries  themselves  were  in  no  small  degree  of  per- 


ON    THE    MORAVIANS    VIEWED    AS    MISSIONARIES.  151 

plexity.  In  this  situation  of  difficulty,  ordinary  travellers  would 
sit  down  to  the  work  of  calculation,  and  so  did  they  ;  they  would 
weigh  reasons  and  probabilities,  and  so  did  they ;  they  would 
gather  information  from  the  natives,  and  exercise  their  judgment 
upon  it,  and  advise  earnestly  with  one  another,  and  so  too  did 
these  humble  missionaries.  But  there  was  still  one  other  expedient 
which  they  resorted  to,  and  in  the  instance  before  us,  it  helped 
them  out  of  their  difficulties.  This  expedient  was  prayer.  They 
laid  the  matter  before  God,  and  He  answered  them.  This,  we 
imagine,  is  what  ordinary  travellers  seldom  think  of  doing  ;  what 
the  men  of  an  infidel  world  would  call  fanaticism  ;  but  if  there  be 
any  truth  in  the  word  of  God,  it  is  the  likeliest  method  of  obtain- 
ing counsel  and  direction  under  all  our  embarrassments.  "  If  any 
of  you  lack  wisdom,  let  him  ask  of  God,  that  giveth  to  all  men  lib- 
erally, and  upbraideth  not ;  and  it  shall  be  given  him.  But  let 
him  ask  in  faith,  nothing  wavering."  Their  account  of  this  mat- 
ter is  too  interesting  to  be  omitted. 

"  19th. — In  the  morning  we  met  in  our  tent,  where  we  were  safe  from  the 
intrusion  of  the  Esquimaux,  to  confer  together  upon  this  most  important  sub- 
ject. We  weighed  all  the  circumstances  connected  with  it  maturely  and  im- 
partially as  in  the  presence  of  God,  and  not  being  able  to  come  to  any  decision, 
where  reasons  for  and  against  the  question  seemed  to  hold  such  an  even  balance, 
we  determined  to  commit  our  case  to  Him  who  hath  promised  that  "if  two  of 
His  people  shall  agree  on  earth  as  touching  anything  that  they  shall  ask,  it 
shall  be  done  for  them;"  (Matt,  xviii.  19  ;)  and  kneeling  down,  entreated  Him  to 
hear  our  prayers  and  supplications,  in  this  our  distressed  and  embarrassing  situ- 
ation, and  to  make  known  to  us  His  will  concerning  our  future  proceedings, 
whether  we  should  persevere  in  fulfilling  the  whole  aim  of  our  voyage,  or,  pre- 
vented by  circumstances,  give  up  a  part  and  return  home  from  this  place. 

"  The  peace  of  God  which  filled  our  hearts  on  this  memorable  occasion,  and 
the  strong  conviction  wrought  in  us,  both  that  we  should  persevere  in  His  name 
to  fulfil  the  whole  of  our  commission,  relying  without  fear  on  his  help  and  pres- 
ervation, no  words  can  describe ;  but  those  who  believe  in  the  fulfilment  of  the 
gracious  promises  of  Jesus,  given  to  his  poor  followers  and  disciples,  will  un- 
derstand us  when  we  declare  that  we  were  assured  that  it  was  the  will  of  God 
our  Saviour  that  we  should  not  now  return  and  leave  our  work  unfinished,  but 
proceed  to  the  end  of  our  proposed  voyage.  Each  of  us  communicated  to  his 
brother  the  conviction  of  his  heart,  all  fears  and  doubts  vanished,  and  we  were 
filled  anew  with  courage  and  willingness  to  act  in  obedience  to  it  in  the  strength 
of  the  Lord.  O,  that  all  men  knew  the  comfort  and  happiness  of  a  mind  de- 
voted unto,  and  firmly  trusting  in  God  in  all  things." — p.  64. 

On  the  25th  of  August,  they  reached  the  termination  of  their 
voyage,  and  sailed  up  the  river  Koksoak,  which  discharges  its 
waters  into  the  bottom  of  Ungava  bay.  The  estuary  of  Koksoak 
or  South  river,  lies  in  N.  latitude  58°  36'.  It  is  as  broad  as  the 
Thames  at  Gravesend,  and  bears  a  great  resemblance  to  that  river 
in  its  windings  for  twenty-four  miles  upwards.  It  is  distant  by 
sea  from  Okkak  between  600  and  700  miles,  and  Cape  Chudleigh 
is  about  halfway.  They  were  soon  descried  by  the  natives,  who 
shouted  them  a  rapturous  welcome.  Upon  hoisting  their  colors, 
they  were  incessantly  hailed  by  the  inhabitants.     There  was  a 


152  ON    THE    MORAVIANS    VIEWED    AS    MISSIONARIES. 

general  cry  of  Europeans  !  Europeans  !  from  the  men  in  the  kay- 
aks, who,  by  all  manner  of  gesticulations,  expressed  their  pleasure, 
brandishing  their  oars,  and  shouting  continually  as  they  rowed 
alongside  the  boat.  The  women  on  shore  answered  with  loud  ac- 
clamations. 

They  were  not  long  in  acquainting  the  natives  with  the  cause 
of  their  voyage,  and  it  is  delightful  to  observe  the  advantage  they 
possessed  in  the  zeal  of  their  coadjutors  among  the  converted  Es- 
quimaux, whom  they  brought  along  with  them.  Jonathan  and 
Jonas  conversed  with  them  about  the  concerns  of  their  immortal 
souls,  declaring  to  them  the  love  of  God  our  Saviour  towards 
them  ;  and  Sybilla,  Jonathan's  wife,  was  met  with  seated  among 
a  company  of  women,  and  exhorting  them  with  great  simplicity 
and  fervor,  to  hear  and  believe  the  Gospel.  On  this  subject  we 
shall  present  only  one  extract  more  from  the  work  before  us. 

"  30th. — Our  people,  and  with  them  the  strange  Esquimaux,  met  for  public 
worship.  Brother  Kohlmeister  once  more  explained  to  them  our  intention  in 
coming  thus  far  to  visit  them.  He  addressed  them  to  the  following  effect : — 
'  That  already,  many  years  ago,  many  excellent  people,  in  the  country  beyond 
the  great  ocean,  had  thought  of  them  with  much  love,  and  felt  desirous  that 
the  inhabitants  of  theUngava  country  also  might  hear  the  comfortable  word  of 
God,  and  be  instructed  in  it,  for  they  had  heard  that  the  Esquimaux  here  were 
heathen,  who  through  ignorance  served  the  Torngak,  or  evil  spirit,  and  were 
led  by  him  into  the  commission  of  all  manner  of  sin  ;  that  they  might  hereafter 
be  lost,  and  go  to  the  place  of  eternal  darkness  and  misery.  Out  of  love  there- 
fore,' continued  the  missionary,  *  they  have  sent  us  to  you,  and  out  of  love  we 
have  come  to  you  to  tell  you  how  you  may  be  saved,  and  become  happy, 
peaceful  children  of  God,  being  delivered  from  the  fear  of  death  which  is  now 
upon  you  all,  and  have  the  prospect  of  everlasting  peace  and  joy  hereafter, 
even  by  receiving  the  Gospel,  and  turning  to  Jesus  who  is  the  only  Creator  and 
Saviour  of  all  men.  He  died  for  your  sins,  for  our  sins,  and  for  the  sins  of  all 
mankind,  as  our  surety,  suffering  the  pimishment  we  deserved,  that  you,  by  re- 
ceiving Him,  and  believing  on  Him,  might  be  saved,  and  not  go  to  the  place 
of  eternal  darkness  and  pain,  but  to  the  place  of  bliss  and  eternal  rest.  You 
cannot  yet  understand  these  comfortable  words  of  the  Gospel ;  but  if  it  is  your 
sincere  wish  to  know  the  truth  of  them,  Jesus  will  open  your  ears  and  hearts, 
to  hear  and  understand  them.  These  my  companions  were  as  ignorant  as  you, 
but  they  now  thank  God  that  they  know  Jesus  as  their  Saviour,  and  are  as- 
sured that  through  His  death  they  shall  inherit  everlasting  life.' 

"  During  this  address  all  were  silent  and  very  attentive.  Some  exclaimed, 
•  O  !  we  desire  to  hear  more  about  it.'  Old  Netsiak  from  Eivektok  said  '  I  am 
indeed  old,  but  if  you  come  to  live  here,  I  will  certainty  remove  hither  also, 
and  live  with  you  and  be  converted.' 

"  When  we  put  the  question  to  them,  whether  they  were  willing  that  we 
should  come  and  dwell  with  them  and  instruct  them,  they  all  answered,  with  a 
loud  and  cheerful  voice,  '  Kaititse  tok !  Kaititse  tok!  O!  do  come  soon  and 
live  with  us,  we  will  all  gladly  be  converted,  and  live  with  you.'  Jonathan 
and  Jonas  also  bore  ample  testimony  to  the  truth  of  what  we  had  spoken,  and 
their  words  seemed  to  make  a  deep  impression  on  all  their  countrymen.  Uttaki- 
vok  was  above  others  eager  to  express  his  wish  that  we  might  soon  make  a  set- 
tlement in  the  Ungava  country.  Five  of  the  fourteen  families  who  mean  to 
reside  here  next  winter  are  from  Eivektok." — p.  75. 

On  the  first  of  September,  they  took  their  leave  of  South  river, 


ON    THE    MORAVIANS    VIEWED    AS    MISSIONARIES.  153 

not  without  every  expression  of  regret  and  attachment  from  the 
natives,  who,  with  a  generous  benevolence  not  to  be  surpassed  in 
the  refined  countries  of  Europe,  called  after  them,  '  Come  soon 
again,  we  shall  always  be  wishing  for  you.'  Their  homeward 
voyage  was  more  quick  and  prosperous ;  and  on  the  4th  of  Octo- 
ber, they  reached  Okkak,  after  having  performed  a  distance  of 
from  1200  to  1300  miles. 

The  Moravian  style,  throughout  the  whole  of  their  narrations, 
is  lucid  and  perspicuous ;  replete  with  the  phraseology  of  Scrip- 
ture. It  has  a  certain  air  of  sweetness  and  gentleness  about  it, 
which  harmonizes  with  all  our  other  associations  which  regard 
this  interesting  people.  With  all  their  piety  they  mingle  a  very 
lively  interest  in  the  topics  of  ordinary  travellers  ;  and  as  the  sin- 
gle aim  of  all  their  descriptions  is  to  be  faithful,  they  often  suc- 
ceed in  a  clear  and  impressive  definition  of  the  object  which  they 
wish  to  impress  upon  the  imagination  of  the  reader.  This  applies 
in  particular  to  their  sketches  of  scenery  described  in  language 
unclouded  by  ostentation,  and  singularly  appropriate  to  the  sub- 
ject of  which  they  are  treating.  There  is  not  the  most  distant 
attempt  at  fine  writing.  But  if  the  public  attention  were  more 
strongly  directed  to  the  productions  of  the  United  Brethren,  and  if 
the  effect  which  lies  in  the  simplicity  of  their  faithful  and  accurate 
descriptions  were  to  become  the  subject  of  more  frequent  observa- 
tion, we  should  not  think  it  strange  that  their  manner  should  be- 
come fashionable,  and  that  something  like  a  classical  homage 
should  at  length  be  rendered  to  the  purity  of  the  Moravian  style. 

However  this  be,  it  is  high  time  that  the  curiosity  of  the  public 
were  more  powerfully  directed  to  the  solid  realities  with  which 
these  wonderful  men  have  been  so  long  conversant.  It  is  now  a 
century  since  they  have  had  intercourse  with  men  in  the  infancy 
of  civilization.  During  that  time,  they  have  been  laboring  in  all 
the  different  quarters  of  the  world,  and  have  succeeded  in  reclaim- 
ing many  a  wild  region  to  Christianity.  One  of  their  principles 
in  carrying  on  the  business  of  missions,  is,  not  to  interfere  with 
other  men's  labors  ;  and  thus  it  is  that  one  so  often  meets  with 
them  among  the  outskirts  of  the  species,  making  glad  some  soli- 
tary place,  and  raising  a  sweet  vineyard  in  some  remote  and  un- 
frequented wilderness.  It  may  give  some  idea  of  the  extent  of 
their  operations,  to  state  that,  by  the  last  accounts,*  there  are 
27,400  human  beings  converts  to  the  Christian  faith,  and  under 
Moravian  discipline,  who  but  for  them  would  at  this  moment  have 
been  still  living  in  all  the  darkness  of  Paganism !  Surely  when 
the  Christian  public  are  made  to  know  that  these  men  are  at  this 
moment  struggling  with  embarrassments,  they  will  turn  the  stream 
of  their  benevolence  to  an  object  so  worthy  of  it,  nor  suffer  mis- 
sionaries of  such  tried  proficiency  and  success,  to  abandon  a  single 
establishment  for  want  of  funds  to  support  it. 

*  In  1815. 
.    20 


154  ON    THE    MORAVIANS    VIEWED    AS    MISSIONARIES. 

But  apart  from  the  missionary  cause  altogether,  is  not  the  solid 
information  they  are  accumulating  every  year,  respecting  unknown 
countries,  and  the  people  who  live  in  them,  of  a  kind  highly  inter- 
esting to  the  taste  and  the  pursuits  of  merely  secular  men  ?  Now 
much  of  this  information  has  been  kept  back  for  want  of  encour- 
agement. The  public  did  not  take  that  interest  in  their  proceed- 
ings, which  could  warrant  the  expectation  of  a  sale  for  a  printed 
narrative  of  many  facts  and  occurrences,  which  have  now  van- 
ished from  all  earthly  remembrance.  It  is  true,  we  have  Crantz's 
History  of  Greenland  ;  and  we  appeal  to  this  book  as  an  evidence 
of  what  we  have  lost  by  so  many  of  their  missionary  journals  be- 
ing suffered  to  lie  in  manuscript,  among  the  few  of  their  own 
brotherhood  who  had  access  to  them.  We  guess  that  much  may 
yet  be  gathered  out  of  their  archives,  and  much  from  the  recollec- 
tion of  the  older  missionaries.  Had  it  not  been  for  the  inquiries 
of  that  respected  individual,  Mr.  Wilberforce,  we  should  have 
lost  many  of  these  very  interesting  particulars,  which  are  now 
preserved  in  the  published  letters  on  the  Nicobar  Islands,  and 
these  written  by  the  only  surviving  missionary,  after  an  interval 
of  twenty-five  years  from  the  period  of  the  actual  observations. 
Surely  it  is  not  for  the  credit  of  public  intelligence  among  us,  that 
such  men  and  such  doings  should  have  been  so  long  unnoticed ; 
and  it  must  excite  regret  not  unmingled  with  shame,  to  think  that 
a  complete  set  of  their  periodical  accounts  is  not  to  be  found,  be- 
cause there  was  no  demand  for  their  earlier  numbers,  and  they 
had  no  encouragement  to  multiply  or  preserve  them. 


ON  THE 

STYLE   AND  SUBJECTS   OF   THE   PULPIT 


BEING   THE 


SUBSTANCE  OF  AN  ARGUMENT 


CONTRIBUTED   TO 


"THE  CHRISTIAN  INSTRUCTOR" 

IN  1811. 


The  public  taste  has  of  late  years  undergone  a  considerable 
change  in  works  of  imagination.  The  fictitious  characters  have 
become  more  natural ;  the  story  is  a  nearer  imitation  of  real  life  ; 
and  the  moral  far  more  applicable  than  ever  to  the  existing  state 
of  manners,  and  the  actual  business  of  society.  Whatever  may 
be  the  cause,  the  fact  is  undeniable.  We  are  less  disposed  to 
sympathize  with  those  high-flown  sensibilities,  which,  however 
beautiful  in  fiction,  are  seldom  exemplified  in  the  every-day  scenes 
of  human  experience.  The  popular  taste  is  more  a  business  taste 
than  before.  It  runs  less  upon  finery,  and  more  upon  plain  and 
familiar  usefulness.  The  men  and  women  of  our  most  popular 
novels  bear  a  closer  resemblance  to  those  characters  which  we 
meet  every  week  at  our  markets,  and  converse  with  at  our  tea- 
parties  ;  and  the  poetry  of  a  late  fashionable  school,  derived  its 
chief  currency  from  the  growing  taste  of  the  public  for  the  truth 
and  simplicity  of  nature. 

In  the  volume  before  us,*  we  perceive  something  like  the  ap- 
plication of  the  same  principle  to  a  composition  of  piety.  The 
chief  aim  of  the  writer  is  truth  and  perspicuity ;  and  in  the  prose- 
cution of  this  aim,  he  gives  up  everything  that  is  calculated  only 
to  signalize  and  display  himself.  There  is  no  superfluous  expres- 
sion, no  ambitious  oratory ;  he  is  always  sure  to  take  the  line  of 
shortest  distance  to  the  point  he  is  going  to.  He  expends  all  his 
strength  on  the  idea  ;  after  which  he  has  no  other  care,  than  to 
express  it  with  clearness  and  effect  in  the  fewest  possible  words. 

*  The  work  reviewed  in  this  paper  was  Dr.  Charters'  Sermons. 


156  ON    THE    STYLE    AND    SUDJECTS    OF    THE    PULPIT. 

He  never  aspires  after  mere  gracefulness  of  composition  ;  and,  in 
his  exclusive  attention  to  what  is  useful,  appears  quite  indifferent 
to  the  flow  of  his  periods,  and  the  musical  construction  of  his  sen- 
tences. We  cannot  look  for  anything  like  harmony  in  this  apho- 
ristic style  of  writing,  where  correctness  takes  at  all  times  the 
precedency  of  ornament,  and  the  elegant  is  sacrificed  without  re- 
morse, whenever  it  would  pervert  or  enfeeble  the  rigorous  accu- 
racy of  the  meaning. 

It  is  not  merely  in  point  of  expression,  but  in  the  choice  of  his 
subject,  and  the  manner  of  treating  it,  that  this  author  strikes  out 
a  path  for  himself,  and  stands  distinguished  from  all  popular  and 
prevailing  example.  His  great  aim  is  to  bring  forward  Christian- 
ity to  the  walks  of  ordinary  business,  and  to  send  home  its  moral 
principles  to  the  understanding  and  experience  of  ordinary  men. 
Some  would  say,  that  he  brings  down  Christianity  to  ordinary 
business ;  as  if  Christianity  were  degraded  by  such  an  applica- 
tion, and  as  if  human  life,  in  all  its  minuteness  and  variety,  were 
not  the  proper  theatre  for  the  display  and.  exercise  of  Christian 
principles.  The  author  before  us  seems  to  have  caught  the  true 
practical  spirit  of  the  New  Testament,  and  to  have  aimed  at  the 
revival  of  that  substantial  style,  which,  however  often  exemplified 
in  the  discourses  of  our  Saviour,  has  been  suffered  to  run  too  much 
into  idle  speculation  and  controversy  on  the  one  hand,  and  into 
cold  uninteresting  generality  on  the  other.  He  carries  out  relig- 
ion from  the  house  of  prayer  into  the  shop,  the  market,  and  the 
family.  This  imparts  a  secular  tone  to  his  performances,  which 
is  certainly  not  very  usual  in  a  composition  of  piety  ;  but  the  true 
and  the  useful  seem  to  be  the  favorite,  if  not  the  only,  objects  of 
this  respectable  writer.  In  the  prosecution  of  these  objects,  there 
is,  at  times,  a  minuteness  of  application,  which  some  will  deem  low 
and  familiar  ;  a  plainness  of  expression,  which  some  will  term 
vulgar  and  slovenly  ;  and  even  a  simplicity,  which,  to  some  tastes, 
may  appear  to  border  upon  childishness,  and  be  somewhat  allied 
to  that  overwrought  simplicity  which  runs  through  the  phrase  and 
sentiment  of  Mr.  Wordsworth,  and  which  for  a  time  disgusted  the 
public  even  with  his  more  meritorious  poetry. 

But  there  is  still  another  point  of  resemblance  betwixt  these 
two  writers,  in  their  very  different  departments  of  literary  exer- 
tion. In  neither  of  them  is  the  simplicity  which  we  are  now  talk- 
ing of, — the  simplicity  of  weak  and  incapable  minds.  Both  make 
a  voluntary  descent  from  the  natural  level  of  their  powers  and  at- 
tainments. In  the  volume  of  Dr.  Charters  we  meet  with  frequent 
displays  of  an  understanding  of  the  higher  order  ;  where  there  is 
often  great  depth  of  observation,  and  great  vigor  and  brilliancy 
of  eloquence,  the  occasional  glimpses  of  a  mind  enriched  with  va- 
rious literature,  and  which  can  appeal  to  the  profoundest  principles 
of  political  science,  when  they  give  effect  or  illustration  to  the  les- 
sons of  the  Christian  morality.     In  a  word,  his  is  not  the  simpli- 


ON    THE    STYLE    AND    SUBJECTS    OF    THE    PULPIT.  157 

city  of  impotence  It  is  a  simplicity  assumed  upon  taste,  and  upon 
principle ;  and  founded  upon  the  maxim,  that  ornament  is  at  all 
times  to  be  sacrificed  to  truth,  and  perspicuity  of  observation. 
This  is  an  object  he  never  loses  sight  of,  though  it  should  land 
him  at  times  in  the  trite,  the  inelegant,  or  the  untasteful.  He  ad- 
heres to  it  with  all  the  vigor  of  a  true  practical  philosopher  ;  and, 
in  his  exclusive  preference  for  what  is  useful,  suffers  no  example 
to  restrain  him  from  bringing  forward  truth  however  homely,  and 
experience  however  minute,  and  however  familiar. 

Dr.  Charters  has  taken  occasion,  in  the  first  sermon  in  the  vol- 
ume before  us,  to  announce  his  peculiar  ideas  upon  this  subject. 

"  To  be  plain,  and  memorable,  and  earnest,"  says  he,  ••  are  the  chief  requi- 
sites in  the  style  of  a  practical  treatise. 

"  Labor  is  well  bestowed  in  making  the  principles  of  religion  plain  ;  and  they 
only  who  have  tried  to  instruct  the  ignorant,  know  how  much  labor  it  requires, 
and  how  often  the  man  of  taste  must  deny  himself;  blunting  the  edge  of  his 
wit,  dropping  the  graces  of  composition,  breaking  his  large  round  period 
in  pieces,  making  vulgar  similes,  and  using  words  which  shock  the  critic. 
When  the  labor  of  explanation  is  accomplished,  the  merit  of  the  laborer  does 
not  appear,  and  credit  is  seldom  given  him  for  his  condescension  and  self- 
denial. 

"  Works  of  taste  are  composed  to  please  ;  but  the  object  of  religious  instruc- 
tion is  more  serious  and  severe  ;  it  is  to  undeceive,  to  reclaim,  to  conduct  in  a 
steep  and  thorny  path.  Taste  and  imagination  revolt,  leaving  reason  and  the 
heart  to  ponder.  '  The  orator  (says  D'Alembert)  sacrifices  harmony,  when 
he  would  strike  by  things  :  justness,  when  he  would  attract  by  expression.' 
This  may  be  a  good  rule  for  the  academy  ;  but  the  sacred  orator  will  never 
make  the  last  of  these  sacrifices,  and  the  first  he  will  not  account  a  sacrifice. 

"  Earnestness  supersedes  the  use  of  ornaments,  and  declines  them.  In  en- 
tering a  cottage  to  give  counsel  and  comfort,  your  fine  clothes  and  fine  language 
would  disconcert  rather  than  ingratiate.  A  familiar,  serious,  earnest  manner  is 
enough.  Richard  Baxter  often  introduces  in  his  writings  such  objections,  and 
doubts,  and  temptations,  and  fears,  as  had  been  proposed  to  him  in  private,  and 
answers  them  as  he  did  to  the  proposer.  This  gives  to  his  style  a  character  of 
truth  and  life.  The  language  of  conference  about  incumbent  duties  and  trials, 
though  proscribed  by  the  critics  as  colloquial,  is  well  adapted  to  religious 
instruction.  It  is  opposed  to  an  erroneous  fastidious  conceit  about  the  dignity 
of  pulpit  composition.  It  is  doing  for  the  Gospel  what  Socrates  did  for  philos- 
ophy,  bringing  it  from  the  clouds  to  the  earth ;  from  the  region  of  fancy  to  the 
abode  of  conscience  ;  from  hidden  mysteries  to  the  affairs  of  men ;  transform- 
ing it  from  a  theatre  of  eloquence  into  a  rule  of  life." 

But  a  sermon,  written  on  the  above  principle,  does  not  appear 
to  us  to  be  exclusively  addressed  to  the  poor  and  the  ignorant.  It 
must  be  observed,  that  there  is  a  very  wide  distinction  betwixt  a 
truth  in  practical  morality,  and  a  truth  that  is  exclusively  addressed 
to  the  understanding.  In  the  latter  case,  the  object,  in  announc- 
ing the  truth,  is  gained,  if  it  be  understood.  In  the  former  case, 
that  the  object  be  fulfilled,  the  truth  must  not  merely  be  under- 
stood, but  acted  upon.  We  could  forgive  the  contempt  of  a  pro- 
found mathematician,  when  he  turns  aside  from  some  humble  per- 
formance of  the  school-boy  elements  of  his  science  ;  but  that  can 
by  no  means  justify  the  indifference  of  the  most  exalted  genius 


158  ON    THE    STYLE    AND    SUBJECTS    OF    THE    PULPIT. 

upon  earth,  when  he  turns  aside  from  a  performance  that  gives 
him  a  clear  and  simple  exposition  of  his  duty,  merely  because  there 
is  nothing  in  it  to  stimulate  and  exercise  the  powers  of  his  under- 
standing. Our  sole  object  in  reading  a  sermon,  is  not  to  rectify 
or  inform  our  judgment :  it  is  also  to  fill  our  minds  with  an  habit- 
ual sense  of  duty,  by  the  frequent  recurrence  of  its  attention  to 
principles,  which,  in  themselves,  are  clear  and  undeniable,  but 
which,  if  not  always  present  to  the  mind,  leave  it  a  prey  to  the  in- 
roads of  vice,  and  licentiousness,  and  folly.  When  one  man  tells 
another  his  duty,  it  is  not  to  protect  his  understanding  from  the 
sophistry  of  a  false  argument, — it  is  to  protect  his  conduct  from 
the  still  more  bewildering  sophistry  of  passion  and  interest.  It  is 
not  to  teach  him  what  he  did  not  know,  and  did  not  understand. 
The  principle  may  be  acquiesced  in  the  moment  that  it  is  proposed  ; 
and  has.  in  all  likelihood,  been  acquiesced  in  a  thousand  times  be- 
fore. Still  this  does  not  supersede  the  usefulness  of  telling  it  over 
again.  A  moral  principle,  to  exert  any  efficacy  upon  the  conduct, 
must  be  present  to  the  mind  at  the  moment  of  deliberation.  It  is 
not  enough,  that  in  some  former  exercise  of  our  understanding, 
this  principle  was  attended  to,  and  considered,  and  acquiesced  in, 
and  added  to  the  list  of  our  intellectual  acquirements.  It  must  be 
something  more  than  understood.  It  must  be  attended  to.  It 
must  be  at  all  times  in  readiness  for  actual  service,  and  ever  prone 
to  offer  itself  as  a  powerful  and  controlling  element  in  the  contest, 
which  so  often  arises  betwixt  the  opposite  principles  of  our  con- 
stitution. When  we  read  a  sermon,  we  sit  down  to  it  as  an  exer- 
cise of  piety.  We  may  meet  with  nothing  which  we  did  not 
know,  and  be  told  of  nothing  which  we  did  not  understand.  It 
may  add  nothing  to  our  speculation,  but  it  will  fulfil  its  chief  aim, 
if  it  adds  to  our  practical  wisdom  ;  if  it  gives  our  mind  a  steadier 
and  more  habitual  direction  to  the  principles  of  good  conduct;  if 
it  adds  to  the  promptitude  with  which  we  can  summon  up  the  sug- 
gestions of  duty,  to  restrain  and  regulate  our  footsteps  in  the  path 
of  life,  and  arrest  the  rapidity  of  those  erring  and  irregular  move- 
ments, into  which  the  turbulence  of  this  world's  passions  is  so 
ready  to  transport  us. 

We  can  conceive  a  philosopher  to  have  made  the  study  of  hu- 
man nature  the  business  of  his  life,  and  to  have  even  enlightened 
the  world  by  his  profound  and  accurate  speculations  on  the  differ- 
ent principles  of  our  constitution.  It  is  well  known,  that  this  does 
not  prevent  these  principles,  as  they  exist  in  his  own  mind,  from 
being  actually  in  a  high  state  of  disorder,  and  that  the  speculative 
wisdom  which  can  trace  the  law  of  their  operation,  is  totally  dif- 
ferent from  that  practical  wisdom  which  can  control  their  violence, 
and  maintain  them  in  an  entire  subordination  to  his  sense  of  pro- 
priety. It  is  perfectly  conceivable  that,  accomplished  as  his  mind 
is  in  the  science  of  its  own  character  and  phenomena,  it  may  lose 
the  direction  of  itself  in  the  collisions  of  actual  business,  and  ex- 


ON  THE  STYLE  AND  SUBJECTS  OF  THE  PULPIT.       159 

hibit  the  humiliating  spectacle  of  weakness,  and  wickedness,  and 
folly.  Suppose  him  to  be  engaged  in  the  management  of  some 
important  affair,  which  is  in  danger  of  miscarrying  from  the  mis- 
guided violence  of  his  temper.  Is  there  anything  misplaced  or 
superfluous,  we  would  ask,  in  a  friend  taking  him  aside  and  en- 
treating him  to  be  calm?  It  is  vain  to  say,  that  he  has  attended 
profoundly  to  the  nature  and  effects  of  anger,  and  that  he  knows 
this  part  of  our  constitution  better  than  any  of  his  advisers.  In 
spite  of  this  circumstance,  it  would  be  looked  upon  as  quite  natu- 
ral, quite  in  place,  for  an  esteemed  or  confidential  acquaintance  to 
enter  at  large  into  the  necessity  of  maintaining  the  discipline  of 
his  temper,  and  the  mischief  that  would  proceed  from  indulging  it, 
even  though  in  the  whole  course  of  his  explanation,  he  was  not  to 
appeal  to  a  single  principle  which  had  not  been  better  explained, 
and  more  eloquently  expatiated  upon  by  our  profound  and  philo- 
sophical moralist.  It  is  not  that  he  does  not  know  his  duty,  but 
that,  in  the  rapidity  of  his  feelings,  he  is  apt  to  forget,  and  needs 
to  be  reminded  of  it.  It  is,  that  his  sense  of  duty  is  apt  to  be 
overpowered  by  the  violence  of  his  passions,  and  that  to  prepare 
him  for  the  contest,  we  must  strengthen  his  sense  of  duty,  both 
by  recalling  his  attention  to  it,  and  by  applying  that  kind  of  au- 
thority which  an  earnest  and  sincere  friendship  usually  carries 
along  with  it. 

The  sermon,  which  lays  before  us  a  simple  exposition  of  our 
duty,  stands  precisely  in  the  situation  of  such  a  friend.  It  is  not 
that  we  are  ignorant  of  our  duty,  but  we  find,  that  a  frequent  re- 
calment  of  our  mind  to  its  simple  and  undeniable  maxims,  has  the 
actual  effect  of  imparting  a  greater  steadiness  to  our  conduct,  and 
forms  a  useful  part  of  moral  and  religious  discipline.  There  is  a 
difference  between  mistaking  our  duty  and  losing  sight  of  it.  The 
object  of  a  sermon  is  to  heal  not  the  former,  but  the  latter  infir- 
mity of  our  constitution, — not  so  much  to  enlighten  us  in  the  knowl- 
edge of  our  duty,  as  to  enable  us  to  keep  it  more  constantly  in 
view,  that  it  may  be  ever  present  to  the  mind,  and  exert  an  habit- 
ual authority  over  the  unruly  passions  and  principles  of  our  na- 
ture. We  find,  in  point  of  fact,  that  the  frequent  direction  of  our 
mind  to  the  duties  and  principles  of  conduct,  is  an  improving  ex- 
ercise ;  and  that  a  volume  of  sermons  is  a  very  effectual  instru- 
ment for  giving  it  this  direction.  It  may  neither  regale  the  imag- 
ination, nor  add  a  single  truth  to  the  list  of  our  intellectual  attain- 
ments ;  but  it  accomplishes  its  chief  purpose,  if  we  rise  from  it 
with  a  heart  more  penetrated  with  a  sense  of  its  religious  obliga- 
tions, and  disposed  to  yield  a  readier  submission  to  the  authority 
of  conscience  and  of  scripture. 

Upon  these  considerations,  a  plain  volume  of  sermons  isa  useful 
manual,  not  merely  for  the  peasant,  but  for  the  philosopher.  We 
do  not  say,  that  it  will  help  him  in  the  business  of  philosophy,  any 
more  than  that  it  will  help  an  artificer  in  the  processes  of  work- 


160       ON  THE  STYLE  AND  SUBJECTS  OF  THE  PULPIT. 

manship.  But  it  will  help  him  in  an  object  which  should  be  as 
dear  to  him  as  to  any  brother  of  his  species  ;  it  will  keep  alive  the 
vigilance  of  his  moral  principles  ;  nor  can  we  conceive  a  more  in- 
teresting picture,  than  a  man  of  science,  rich  in  all  the  liberal  en- 
dowments of  a  university,  giving  a  holy  hour  to  the  culture  of  his 
heart,  and  to  the  truest  of  all  wisdom,  the  wisdom  of  piety. 

But  it  would  not  be  altogether  accurate,  to  characterize  the 
volume  before  us  as  a  plain  volume  of  sermons.  There  is  a  great 
deal  of  very  plain  observation  to  be  met  with  ;  for  what  is  or 
what  ought  to  be,  more  familiar  to  the  understandings  of  all  than 
the  practical  lessons  of  morality  ?  It  seems  to  be  the  maxim  of 
Dr.  Charters,  to  tell  all  the  truth,  and  nothing  but  the  truth  ;  and 
in  steady  obedience  to  this  maxim,  he  neither  shrinks  from  what 
is  trite  and  familiar,  nor  does  he  ever  abandon  the  useful,  in  pur- 
suit of  the  profound,  the  ingenious,  or  the  elaborate.  But  in  tell- 
ing all  the  truth,  there  is  an  occasional  call  for  a  higher  kind  of 
effort,  and  it  is  an  effort  to  which  this  respectable  author  proves 
himself  fully  equal.  The  great  principles  of  duty  are  obvious  and 
accessible  to  all ;  but  it  sometimes  happens,  that  the  judicious  ap- 
plication of  these  principles  requires  all  the  effort  and  ingenuity 
of  a  mind,  that  is  much  cultivated  in  the  experience  of  human  af- 
fairs. Dr.  Charters,  in  a  former  publication,  observes  :  "  Children 
of  the  poor  often  unite  to  inter  a  parent  decently  :  it  is  a  becom- 
ing and  commendable  testimony  of  respect ;  but  it  is  still  more 
commendable  to  minister  to  them  in  age  and  sickness ;  a  few  bot- 
tles of  wine  are  of  great  use  in  the  decay  of  life,  and  are  better 
bestowed  as  a  cordial,  than  as  a  mark  of  honor."  We  have  heard 
this  called  low,  but  we  confess  that  we  see  nothing  in  it,  but  the 
same  homeliness  and  vigor  of  practical  wisdom,  which  made 
Franklin  so  illustrious,  and  that  we  like  the  man,  who,  in  his  ex- 
clusive preference  for  the  useful,  will  tell  the  truth  as  it  stands,  and 
lay  aside  ornament  and  superfluity,  as  fit  only  for  the  amusement 
of  children.  This  same  author  can  discuss  the  poor  rates,  upon 
the  most  liberal  principles  of  political  economy.  He  can  shape 
his  argument  to  the  spirit  and  philosophy  of  the  times  ;  and,  in 
the  great  object  of  illustrating  the  morality  of  the  New  Testament, 
he  exhibits  all  the  compass  and  cultivation  of  a  mind,  that  is  awake 
both  to  the  events  of  public  history,  and  to  the  very  latest  discov- 
eries which  have  been  made  in  the  progress  of  philosophical  spec- 
ulation. 

But  it  is  high  time  that  Dr.  Charters  should  speak  for  himself. 
The  volume  before  us  consists  of  four  sermons.  It  is  a  new  edi- 
tion, and  different  from  a  former  work  consisting  of  two  volumes, 
and  which  has  been  in  possession  of  the  public  a  go.od  many 
years.  We  confine  our  extracts  to  the  volume  before  us,  as  ex- 
hibiting a  very  fair  specimen  of  the  characteristic  manner  of  the 
author.  His  first  sermon  is  upon  alms-giving ;  and  in  the  sub- 
stantial maxims  which  he  advances  upon  the  direction  of  our  char- 


ON  THE  STYLE  AND  SUBJECTS  OF  THE  PULPIT.       161 

ity,  affords  us  a  most  refreshing  contrast  to  that  sentimental  and 
high-wrought  extravagance  which  sparkles  in  the  poetry  and  elo- 
quence of  our  fine  writers.  The  author  never  forgets,  that  it  lies 
within  the  province  of  virtue  not  merely  to  feel,  but  to  do, — not 
merely  to  conceive  a  purpose,  but  to  carry  that  purpose  into  exe- 
cution,— not  merely  to  be  overpowered  by  the  impression  of  a 
sentiment,  but  to  practise  what  it  loves,  and  to  imitate  what  it  ad- 
mires. 

"  Compassion,  improperly  cultivated,"  says  he,  "  springs  into  a  fruitless  sen- 
sibility. If  a  brother  or  sister  be  naked,  and  destitute  of  daily  food,  and  if  you 
say  unto  them,  depart  in  peace,  be  ye  warmed  and  filled,  notwithstanding  ye 
give  them  not  those  things  which  are  needful  for  the  body ;  what  doth  it  profit  ? 
To  enter  the  abodes  of  the  wretched ;  to  examine  wants,  and  debts,  and  dis- 
eases ;  to  endure  loathsome  sights  and  smells  within  the  sphere  of  infection ;  to 
give  time,  and  thought,  and  hands,  and  money  :  this  is  the  substance,  not  the 
shadow  of  virtue.  The  pleasures  of  sensibility  may  be  less,  but  so  is  the  dan- 
ger of  self-deceit  which  attends  it.  Death-beds,  in  the  page  of  an  eloquent 
writer,  delight  the  imagination ;  but  they  who  are  most  delighted,  are  not  the 
first  to  visit  a  dying  neighbor,  and  sit  up  all  night,  and  wipe  off  the  cold  sweat, 
and  moisten  the  parched  lip,  and  give  easy  postures,  and  bear  with  peevishness, 
and  suggest  a  pious  thought,  and  console  the  parting  spirit.  They  often  encom- 
pass the  altar  of  virtue,  but  not  to  sacrifice. 

"  Extreme  sensibility  is  a  diseased  state  of  the  mind.  It  unfits  us  to  relieve 
the  miserable,  and  tempts  us  to  turn  away.  The  sight  of  pain  is  shunned,  and 
the  thought  of  it  suppressed  ;  the  ear  is  stopped  against  the  cry  of  indigence  ; 
the  house  of  mourning  is  passed  by ;  even  near  friends  are  abandoned,  when 
sick,  to  the  nurse  and  physician,  and  when  dead  to  those  who  mourn  for  a  hire; 
and  all  this  under  pretence  of  fine  feeling  and  sentimental  delicacy.  The 
apples  of  Sodom  are  mistaken  for  the  fruit  of  Paradise. 

'•  Compassion  may  fall  on  wrong  objects,  and  yet  be  justified  and  applauded. 
One  living  in  borrowed  affluence  becomes  bankrupt.  His  sudden  fall  strikes 
the  imagination ;  pity  is  felt,  and  generous  exertions  are  made  in  his  behalf. 
There  is  indeed  a  call  for  pity  ;  but  upon  whom  ?  Upon  servants,  who  have; 
received  no  wages  ;  upon  traders  and  artificers,  whose  economy  he  has  deranged  ; 
upon  the  widow,  whom  he  has  caused  to  weep  over  destitute  children." 

There  is  something  in  all  the  performances  of  Dr.  Charters,  that 
forcibly  reminds  us  of  the  moral  essays  of  Lord  Bacon.  If  the 
reader  is  not  repelled  at  the  outset  by  the  abruptness  of  his  sen- 
tences, and  the  occasional  homeliness  of  his  phraseology,  he  will 
find  in  the  sermons  before  us  a  rich  vein  of  originality  and  just  ob- 
servation. His  taste  is  perhaps  too  exclusively  formed  upon  the 
older  writers  ;  and  in  his  well-founded  admiration  of  what  may  be 
called  the  sturdiness  of  good  sense,  and  judicious  reflections,  he 
seems  to  look  upon  the  mere  embellishment  of  language  as  finical 
and  superfluous,  and  calculated  only  to  amuse  a  puny  and  degene- 
rate age.  We  regret  this  the  more,  that  it  creates  a  prejudice 
against  him  at  the  outset.  Not  but  that  we  have  all  faith  to  repose  in 
the  maxim  of  magna  est  Veritas,  et prevalebit ;  but  we  lament  that 
even  a  temporary  barrier  should  have  been  raised  betwixt  the 
public  mind,  and  that  excellent  sense  which  is  so  well  calculated 
to  purify  and  enlighten  it.     Dr.  Charters  is  entitled  to  a  distin- 

21 


162  ON    THE    STYLE    AND    SUBJECTS    OF    THE    PULPIT. 

guished  reception  in  the  best  company,  but  he  has  neglected  the 
means  of  obtaining  for  himself  a  ready  introduction.  There  is 
nothing  in  his  air  or  first  appearance  that  is  at  all  calculated  to 
announce  his  pretensions.  It  will  take  a  time  before  these  preten- 
sions are  thoroughly  appreciated,  though  we  have  no  doubt  that 
the  time  is  coming  ;  and  even  after  it  arrives,  he  will  be  some- 
what like  certain  philosophers  of  our  acquaintance,  who,  without 
the  air  or  the  habiliments  of  gentlemen,  have  at  length  extorted 
an  acknowledgment  of  their  importance,  and  are,  upon  the  rep- 
utation of  their  more  substantial  accomplishments,  admitted  into 
the  society  of  elegant  and  well-dressed  fashionables. 

But  this  is  all  a  question  of  taste,  and  it  must  never  be  forgotten, 
that  of  every  species  of  composition,  the  popularity  of  a  sermon 
should  be  the  least  dependent  upon  its  fluctuations.  The  aim  of 
poetry  is  to  please.  The  aim  of  a  sermon  is  to  instruct ;  and  its 
chief  excellence  consists  in  the  soundness  of  these  instructions,  and 
in  the  clear  and  familiar  manner  with  which  it  sends  them  home 
to  the  conscience  and  experience  of  its  readers.  We  can  con- 
ceive that  the  exploded  phraseology  of  the  older  writers  may 
again  become  fashionable,  and  that  the  public,  in  a  fit  of  disgust 
at  the  flippancy  of  a  superficial  age,  may  recur  for  a  time  to  that 
homeliness  of  language,  with  which  it  associates  the  manliness  of 
a  Bacon,  a  Barrow,  a  Butler,  and  an  Atterbury.  We  think  little 
of  the  strength  of  that  man's  philosophy,  who  would  suffer  the 
uncouth  exterior  of  the  above  compositions  to  repel  him  from  the 
sense  and  judicious  observation  which  abound  in  them.  And  we 
fear  that  little  can  be  said  for  the  strength  of  that  man's  piety, 
who  would  turn  in  disgust  from  such  a  volume  as  that  before  us, 
merely  because  it  failed  to  regale  his  fancy  by  the  brilliancy  of 
its  images,  or  to  lull  his  ear  by  the  smoothness  and  harmony  of  itt 
clauses.  So  long  as  principle  and  philosophy  exist,  the  impres- 
siveness  of  truth  must  prevail  over  the  graces  and  embellishments 
of  fine  language.  The  latter  is  perpetually  varying,  but  the  for- 
mer is  immutable  as  the  laws  of  our  constitution,  and  lasting  as 
the  existence  of  the  species. 

We  give  the  following  specimen  as  an  example  of  the  practical 
and  familiar  manner  of  Dr.  Charters. 

"  Every  passion  justifies  itself,  and  arguments  are  opposed  to  alms-giving. 

"  I  may  do  what  I  will  with  mine  own,  and  no  one  has  a  right  to  dictate.  But 
you  can  examine  yourself,  and  think  of  the  account  which  must  hereafter  be 
given  of  what  is  your  own. 

"  /  have  children  to  provide  for.  Inquire,  if  there  be  bounds  in  providing  for 
a  family;  if  alms  be  a  kind  ol  riches  which  lay  a  good  foundation  lor  the  time 
to  come  ;  and  whether  your  children  are  like  to  profit  most  by  the  savings  of 
avarice,  or  by  the  odor  of  a  good  name,  and  the  blessing  entailed  by  Provi- 
dence on  the  posterity  of  the  merciful. 

"  J  have  a  rank  to  keep,  and  the  money  expended  docs  good  to  laborers,  thovgh 
motprcchehj  in  tin  form  of  alms.  The  rich  man  in  the  parable,  who  was  clothed 
with  purple  and  fine  linen,  and  fared  sumptuously  every  day,  could  plead,  that 


ON  THE  STYLE  AND  SUBJECTS  OF  THE  PULPIT.      163 

the  famishing  his  fine  cloth  and  sumptuous  fare  did  good  to  laborers;  for  it  does 
not  appear  that  he  was  an  oppressor,  or  unjust. 

"  The  poor  gel.  enough  from  t'/ose  who  are  better  able  to  give-  You  will  find 
upon  inquiry,  that  the  poor  still  have  wants,  some  of  which  you  may  be  able 
to  supply.  The  alms-giving  of  others  will  not  justify  your  neglect.  Every 
man  must  prove  his  own  work,  that  he  may  have  rejoicing  in  himself  alone.  If 
you  give  no  alms  of  such  things  as  you  have,  none  of  these  things  are  clean  to 

you- 

"  When  I  grow  rich  I  will  be  charitable.  If  you  are  charitable  in  such  ways 
as  are  now  in  your  power,  there  is  hope  ;  but  riches  do  not  cure  a  worldly 
mind.  The  sin  of  eovetousness,  and  the  spirit  of  alms,  are  found  in  a  low  es- 
tate. Alft'ctions  may  fix  on  a  cottage,  or  a  little  field  :  the  heart  may  cling  to 
a  small  sum;  for  a  mess  of  pottage,  the  birthright  that  is  despised  will  be  sold. 
There  may  be  a  tvilling  mind  in  the  widow,  whose  possession  is  two  mites  ;  in 
the  laborer,  who  spares  part  of  his  wages  for  those  who  cannot  labor ;  in  one 
who  reaches  a  cup  of  cold  water  to  the  thirsty.  She  has  done  what  she  could, 
was  the  praise  of  Mary  of  Bethany.  '  You  have  one  maid,'  said  William  Law 
to  a  devout  lady,  '  she  is  under  your  care,  teach  her  the  Catechism,  hear  her 
read,  exhort  her  to  pray,  take  her  with  you  to  church,  persuade  her  to  love 
the  divine  service  as  you  love  it,  edify  her  with  your  conversation,  fill  her  with 
your  own  notions  of  piety,  and  spare  no  pains  to  make  her  as  holy  and  devout 
as  yourself.' " 

Now,  all  this  is  true  ;  it  is  important,  and  must  be  appreciated 
by  every  heart  that  is  anxious  to  be  reminded  of  its  duties.  Some 
would  call  it  insipid,  though  we  cannot  conceive  how  this  should 
be  the  feeling  of  those  who  are  rightly  impressed  with  the  magni- 
tude of  the  subject,  and  who  sit  down  to  a  sermon,  with  the  fair 
and  honest  anxiety  of  giving  new  vigilance  and  direction  to  their 
moral  and  religious  principles.  In  the  language  of  Paul,  it  is  right 
that  we  should  become  all  things  to  all  men,  that  we  may  gain 
some  ;  and  if  a  single  proselyte  can  be  gained  to  the  cause  of 
righteousness,  by  the  embellishments  of  elegant  literature,  let  ev- 
ery attraction  be  given  to  the  subject,  which  taste  and  elegance 
can  throw  around  it.  But  let  it  be  remembered,  that  these  at- 
tractions have  no  influence  over  the  vast  majority  of  the  species, 
and  that  the  only  impression  of  which  they  are  susceptible,  is  that 
wholesome  and  direct  impression  which  a  clear  and  simple  expo- 
sition of  duty  makes  upon  the  conscience.  Let  it  further  be  re- 
membered, that  even  among  the  cultivated  orders  of  society,  the 
appetite  for  mere  gracefulness  of  expression  is  sure,  in  time,  to 
give  way  to  the  more  substantial  accomplishments  of  good  sense 
and  judicious  observation  ;  and  that,  in  every  rightly  constituted 
mind,  the  importance  of  what  is  true,  must  carry  it  over  the  al- 
lurement of  what  is  pretty,  and  elegant,  and  fashionable. 

The  following  extract,  on  the  precautions  which  are  necessary 
in  the  prosecution  of  a  good  work,  affords  a  specimen  of  the  man- 
ner in  which  Dr.  Charters  applies  the  lessons  of  a  sound  and  ex- 
perimental wisdom  to  the  elucidation  of  his  subject. 

•*  Do  not  omit,  or  slur  over,  professional  labors,  for  a  labor  of  love.  Y"ou 
may  be  censured  for  not  listening  to  a  talc  of  woe  :  and  let  the  censurer,  who 


164  ON    THE    STYLE    AND    SUBJECTS    OF    THE    PULPIT. 

has  time,  investigate  the  truth  and  falsehood  of  woful  tales,  and  begging  let- 
ters, and  the  use  or  abuse  of  subscription  papers;  but  if  your  time  be  occupied 
with  incumbent  duties  and  real  beneficence,  you  are  above  the  region  of  senti- 
mental clouds  and  vapors. 

"  Be  discreet  in  soliciting  for  your  favorite  charity.  Others  may  have  objects 
equally  useful,  to  which  their  alms  are  devoted.  They  may  not  be  in  circum- 
stances to  give,  and  yet  too  facile  to  resist  importunity ;  they  may  come  to 
mark  and  avoid  you  as  impertinent  and  obtrusive.  It  is  the  safe  and  desirable 
course,  at  least  for  a  quiet  man,  to  interest  himself  in  some  charity  which  he 
can  accomplish,  without  troubling  other  people. 

"  Consult  your  own  temper  ;  if  it  be  extremely  modest,  you  are  not  qualified 
to  scramble  for  the  power  of  patronage,  or  solicit  for  friends,  or  pry  into  secret 
wants,  or  to  be  officious,  inquire  what  good  work  may  fall  in  with  your  con- 
stitutional temper,  and  not  force  the  course  of  the  river.  Father  Paul,  when 
pressed  on  the  subject  of  the  reformation,  said,  God  had  not  given  him  the 
spirit  of  Luther.  They  who  have  bold  unembarrassed  confidence  in  their  own 
powers,  are  fittest  for  public  usefulness. 

"  Take  care,  that  meekness  be  not  lost  in  the  ardent  pursuit  of  charity.  One 
is  apt  to  overrate  the  good  object  upon  which  he  has  set  his  heart,  and  to  resent 
the  opposition  it  may  meet  with  from  the  ill-natured  and  selfish,  or  from  those 
who  have  not  the  same  conviction  of  its  importance  and  utility.  Keep  your 
temper.  From  opposition  and  final  disappointment,  you  may  reap  patience, 
and  meekness,  and  humility ;  and  these,  as  well  as  alms,  are  treasures  in 
heaven. 

"Guard  against  everything  like  unfairness;  against  concealing  or  disguising 
facts,  and  taking  sensibility  by  surprise  ;  against  forwarding  a  good  work  by 
any  indirection.  It  is  of  more  importance,  that,  integrity  and  uprightness  be 
maintained,  than  that  good  works  be  multiplied." 

There  is  a  most  unfortunate  distinction  kept  up  in  the  country 
betwixt  moral  and  evangelical  preaching.  It  has  the  effect  of  in- 
stituting an  opposition  where  no  opposition  should  be  supposed  to 
exist ;  and  a  preference  for  the  one  is,  in  this  way,  made  to  carry 
along  with  it  an  hostility,  or  an  indifference  to  the  other.  The 
mischief  of  this  is  incalculable.  It  has  the  effect  of  banishing 
Christianity  altogether  from  the  system  of  human  life  ;  and  the  fa- 
miliar business  of  society,  which  takes  up  such  a  vast  majority  of 
our  time  and  attention,  is  kept  in  a  state  of  entire  separation  from 
those  religious  principles,  which  are  so  well  calculated  to  guide 
and  to  enlighten  it.  The  effect  is  undeniable.  If  the  main  busi 
ness  of  religion  is  performed  not  in  the  world,  but  away  from  it ; 
if  the  labor  of  the  week  days  is  not  supposed  to  bear  as  intimate  a 
connection  with  religion  as  the  exercises  of  the  Sabbath  ;  if  the 
conduct  of  man  in  society  does  not  come  as  immediately  under  the 
cognizance  and  direction  of  religious  principles  as  the  devout  pre- 
parations of  solitude;  then  by  far  the  greater  part  of  human  life 
is  lost  to  religion;  and  that  noble  principle  which  should  exert  an 
undivided  sway  over  every  hour  and  minute  of  our  existence,  is 
restricted  in  its  operation  to  those  paltry  fragments  of  time  which 
we  can  hardly  extort  from  the  urgency  of  our  secular  occupations. 

There  is  a  party  of  Christians  who  have  the  name  of  zeal,  and 
who  have  even  its  sincerity,  and  yet,  in  point  of  fact,  have  done 
much  to  detract  from  the  importance  of  religion,  by  keeping  it  at 


ON  THE  STYLE  AND  SUBJECTS  OF  THE  PULPIT.       165 

a  distance  from  the  familiar  and  every-day  scenes  of  human  so- 
ciety. They  have  offered  it  precisely  the  same  kind  of  injury 
which  the  dignity  of  a  monarch  sustains  by  the  dismemberment 
of  his  territories.  They  have  narrowed  that  domain  over  which 
the  authority  of  religious  principle  ought  to  have  extended.  In- 
stead of  vesting  in  religion  a  right  of  dominion  over  the  whole 
man,  they  have  restricted  it  to  a  mere  fraction  of  his  time,  and  his 
employment,  and  his  principles.  With  the  appearance  of  main- 
taining the  elevation  of  religion,  they  have,  in  fact,  degraded  it 
from  its  high  and  undivided  empire.  They  have  confined  its  op- 
erations to  a  little  corner  in  the  life  of  man,  instead  of  allowing  it  a 
wide  and  unexcepted  authority  over  the  whole  system  of  human 
affairs. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  is  a  party  of  Christians  who  expatiate, 
in  high  terms,  upon  the  morality  of  the  Gospel,  while  they  disown 
the  power,  and  humility,  and  unction,  of  its  peculiar  doctrines. 
But  to  disown,  or  even  to  admit  with  a  cold  and  unfeeling  negli- 
gence, a  single  doctrine  of  the  New  Testament,  is  to  forget  its  au- 
thority  as  a  revelation  from  heaven.  It  is  an  approach  to  Deism. 
It  is  to  take  away  from  morality  all  that  power  and  influence 
which  it  derives  from  religion.  It  is  to  expel  from  it  the  sanction 
of  God;  for  where  do  we  learn  that  the  morality  of  the  Gospel 
has  the  sanction  of  heaven,  but  from  the  Gospel  itself?  and  how 
can  we  respect  its  lessons,  if  we  withhold  the  cheerful  and  unqual- 
ified submission  of  our  understandings  from  the  authority  of  any 
of  its  doctrines  ? 

Now,  it  is  the  happy  combination  of  evangelical  piety,  with  the 
familiar,  wholesome,  and  experimental  morality  of  human  life, 
which,  to  our  taste,  constitutes  the  peculiar  charm  and  excellence 
of  the  sermons  before  us.*  Dr.  Charters,  in  spite  of  the  secular 
complexion  that  his  continued  reference  to  the  business  of  life  im- 
parts to  his  performance,  sustains  through  the  whole  of  it  the  true 
unction  of  the  apostolical  spirit.  The  morality  of  the  sermons  be- 
fore us  never  degenerates  into  a  mere  system  of  prudence,  or  into 
virtue  reposing  upon  its  own  charms,  or  its  own  obligations:  It 
is  virtue  resting  upon  revealed  truth,  and  animated  by  the  life  and 
inspiration  of  the  Gospel.  The  author  of  these  sermons  looks  upon 
human  life,  not  merely  with  the  eye  of  a  wise  and  philosophical 

♦  We  certainly  could  have  wished,  that  the  peculiar  doctrines  of  the  Gospel  had  been 
more  explicitly  noticed;  that  we  had  not  merely  been  able  to  recognize  their  influence 
throughout  the  practical  discussions  of  the  volume,  but  that  they  had  been  more  openly 
announced,  and  more  emphatically  stated.  In  our  authoi's  pages,  indeed,  we  observe 
such  a  spirit  pervading  them,  as  nothing  could  have  infused  but  a  strong  and  decided  im- 
pression of  Christian  truth.  But,  to  give  a  prominency  to  that  truth,  to  bring  it  partic- 
ularly, and  broadly,  and  frequently  into  view,  is  attended  with  great  advantages,  inde- 
pendently of  its  immediate  effect  on  the  instructions  in  which  it  is  exhibited.  And  though 
we  entirely  disapprove  of  that  ostentatious  way  in  which  some  bring  forward  the  char- 
acteristic truths  of  Christianity,  we  are  persuaded  that  the  other  extreme  of  keeping  them 
very  much  out  of  sight,  is  not  justifiable  on  any  good  ground. 


166       ON  THE  STYLE  AND  SUBJECTS  OF  THE  PULPIT. 

moralist ;  he  looks  upon  it  with  the  eye  of  a  Christian,  and  trans- 
fuses the  sanctity  of  the  evangelical  spirit  into  the  most  minute 
and  familiar  occurrences.  As  we  move  along,  we  feel  ourselves 
not  merely  in  the  hand  of  an  instructor,  whose  sense  and  experi- 
mental wisdom  will  guide  us  with  safety  and  propriety  through 
the  world.  We  feel  as  if  we  were  in  the  hands  of  a  father  or 
evangelist,  whose  venerable  piety  gives  an  air  of  sacredness  to  the 
subject,  who  consecrates  the  ground  on  which  we  are  treading, 
and  makes  it  holy.  This,  combined  with  the  simplicity  of  his 
language,  and  his  frequent  allusions  to  scripture,  has  the  effect  of 
imparting  a  very  decided  feature  of  Quakerism  to  the  whole  of  his 
compositions.  In  saying  this,  we  do  not  conceive  that  we  annex 
ridicule  or  discredit  to  the  performance.  All  that  we  intend  is 
aptly  to  characterize  ;  and,  in  an  age  like  the  present,  when  piety 
is  so  prone  to  run  into  fanatical  extravagance,  and  morality  is 
ready  to  disown  all  that  is  peculiar  or  authoritative  in  the  Christian 
revelation,  we  think  it  no  small  praise  to  be  assimilated  to  a  set  of 
men,  who,  with  all  the  apostolical  simplicity  of  the  first  Christians, 
have,  notwithstanding  several  erroneous  tenets  in  their  religious 
system,  exemplified,  in  so  striking  a  degree,  by  their  mild  and  re- 
spectable virtues,  the  power  and  the  practice  of  the  Gospel. 

The  following  extract  from  his  second  sermon,  on  the  duty  of 
making  a  testament,  may  serve  to  illustrate  the  above  observation. 

"  A  solemn  deed,  which  transfers  our  momentary  interest  in  the  things  of 
time,  reminds  us  that  they  are  not  our  chief  good.  Perhaps  there  are  few  mo- 
ments of  your  life  when  you  are  more  loosened  from  the  world,  than  the  mo- 
ment of  subscribing  a  testament.  The  soul,  amidst  strong  attachments  to 
the  world,  needs  such  loosening.  The  young  acorn  inclosed  in  a  husk,  and 
adhering  to  the  stem,  resists  the  scorching  of  the  sun  and  the  shaking  of  the 
wind,  but  it  is  gradually  ripened  by  the  sun  and  loosened  by  the  wind,  till  it  be 
ready  to  drop  into  the  earth,  that  it  may  rise  again  an  oak  of  the  future  forest- 
Things  inanimate  and  passive,  in  their  progress,  are  only  figures  of  the  destiny 
of  man ;  it  is  man's  prerogative  to  co-operate  in  his  progress,  and  predispose 
himself  for  his  future  high  destination.  A  deed  of  conveyance  disengages  and 
elevates  the  heart.  I  have  determined  whose  all  these  things  shall  be  ;  but 
what  is  my  portion  ?  My  heart  and  flesh  shall  faint  and  fail,  but  God  is  the 
strength  of  my  heart  and  my  portion  forever. 

"  The  last  transaction  of  life  would  be  but  little  interesting,  were  our  pros- 
pect bounded  by  the  darkness,  and  solitude,  and  forgetfulness  of  the  grave ;  far 
from  anticipating  the  evil  day,  we  would  consign  to  oblivion  the  past  and  the 
future.  It  is  immortality  brought  to  light  by  the  Gospel,  which  gives  an  im- 
portance, an  interest,  and  a  dignity,  to  the  concluding  scenes  of  life.  These  are 
not  only  observed  and  remembered  by  men  who  survive,  and  who  are  soon  to 
follow  ;  they  are  also  recorded  in  the  book  out  of  which  the  dead  will  be  judged. 
We  act  as  on  a  theatre,  where  God  and  angels  are  spectators,  and  a  crown  of 
life  is  the  prize.  We  feel  a  powerful  and  permanent,  motive,  throughout  life 
and  at  death,  to  be  faithful  in  the  few  things  now  committed  to  our  charge,  to 
live  unto  the  Lord  and  to  die  unto  the  Lord.'" 

We  regret  that  our  limits  do  not  allow  us  to  indulge  in  any 
further  extracts  from  this  interesting  performance.     At  the  close 


ON  THE  STYLE  AND  SUBJECTS  OF  THE  PULPIT.       167 

of  the  volume,  we  have  an  Appendix,  in  which  the  author  gives 
us  a  short  exposition  of  different  texts  of  Scripture,  in  pursuance 
of  an  idea  of  Lord  Bacon's. 

"  We  find,"  says  his  Lordship,  "  among  theological  writings,  too  many  books 
of  controversy,  a  vast  mass  of  what  we  call  positive  theology,  and  numerous 
prolix  comments  upon  the  several  books  of  Scripture  ;  but  the  thing  we  want 
and  propose  is,  a  short,  sound,  and  judicious  collection  of  notes  and  observations 
upon  particular  texts  of  Scripture,  without  running  into  commonplace,  pursu- 
ing controversies,  or  reducing  these  notes  to  artificial  method,  but  leaving  them 
quite  loose  and  native." 


ON  THE 

DIFFERENCE 


SPOKEN   AND   WRITTEN   LANGUAGE 


BEING   THE 


SUBSTANCE    OF    AN    ARGUMENT 


CONTRIBUTED   TO 


"THE  ECLECTIC  REVIEW" 

IN  1816. 


There  are  many  of  the  constituents  of  spoken  eloquence  that 
cannot  be  imbodied  into  a  volume,  or  offered  to  the  notice  of  the 
public  eye  through  the  medium  of  authorship.  There  are  the 
tone  of  earnestness  which  may  be  heard,  and  the  manner  of  sin- 
cerity which  may  be  witnessed,  and  the  eye  of  intelligent  sensi- 
bility which  may  be  seen,  and  the  vehemence  of  an  impassioned 
delivery  which  may  be  made  to  stimulate  and  to  warn  the  spec- 
tators, and  all  that  significancy  of  gesture  and  of  action,  which 
carries  in  it  a  real  conveyance  both  of  meaning  into  the  under- 
standing, and  of  affection  into  the  hearts,  of  those  who  are  listen- 
ing to  some  exhibition  of  oratory, — every  one  of  which  may  tell 
most  eloquently  and  most  powerfully  upon  an  audience,  and  yet 
neither  of  which  can  be  introduced  by  any  artifice  of  human  skill 
within  the  limits  of  a  written  composition.  We  can  insert  nothing 
into  a  book,  but  bare  words ;  and  though  it  be  true  that  even 
words  without  any  accompaniment  whatever,  may  express  all  the 
fire,  and  all  the  earnestness,  and  all  the  glow  and  intensity  of  feel- 
ing, and  all  the  tone  of  intelligence  to  which  we  have  just  now 
adverted ;  yet  it  is  also  true  that  there  are  many  who  possess  all 
these  attributes  of  the  judgment  and  of  the  fancy,  and  who  do  not 
possess  the  faculty  of  putting  forth  the  expression  of  them  by  the 
vehicle  of  a  written  communication.  There  are  many  who  carry 
in  their  minds  all  the  conceptions  of  genius,  but  who  seem  to  want 


DIFFERENCE  BETWEEN  SPOKEN  AND  WRITTEN  LANGUAGE.       169 

the  one  faculty  of  rendering  them  faithfully  and  impressively  in 
written  language — who  can  speak  all  their  conceptions  with  ade- 
quate effect,  and  that  too  not  merely  because  they  have  all. the 
natural  signs  of  communication  at  their  command,  but  because 
such  is  the  habit  of  their  minds,  that  in  the  present  extemporaneous 
workings  of  thought  and  of  imagination,  they  experience  a  flow, 
and  a  facility,  and  an  appropriateness  of  utterance,  the  distinct 
words  of  which,  could  they  have  been  substantiated  at  the  time  in 
the  indelibility  of  written  characters,  would  have  offered  a  lively 
impress  of  the  talent  which  gave  them  birth  ;  but  which,  in  the 
cool  and  deliberate  efforts  of  composition,  they  find,  from  a  single 
defect  either  of  practice  or  of  original  constitution,  they  are  not 
able  to  create  anew  or  to  recall. 

Written  language  is  an  expedient  framed  to  meet  the  infirmities 
of  our  present  state  ;  and  in  a  more  perfect  condition  of  being,  it 
is  conceivable  that  there  may  be  no  use  and  no  demand  for  it.  It 
is  the  immortality  of  our  nature  which  makes  it  necessary  for  the 
purpose  of  stamping  upon  durable  records  the  wisdom  of  one  gen- 
eration and  transmitting  it  to  another  ;  and  it  is  through  a  defect 
in  the  faculties  of  memory  and  imitation,  that  we  are  not  able  to 
send  to  a  distance  the  products  of  a  powerful  and  original  mind, 
by  the  living  conveyance  of  oral  testimony.  Just  conceive  these 
distempers  of  the  species  to  be  done  away,  and  the  faculty  of 
writing  would  no  longer  be  necessary  to  establish  either  a  distant 
or  a  posthumous  reputation.  And  this  may  lead  us  to  perceive 
upon  how  slender  a  distinction  it  is  that  such  a  reputation  is  earned 
by  some,  and  is  utterly  placed  without  the  reach  and  the  attainment 
of  others  ;  and  how  for  the  few  names  that  have  come  down  to 
posterity,  as  marking  out  the  most  able,  or  the  most  profound,  or 
the  most  eloquent  of  our  race,  there  may  be  thousands  who  pos- 
sessed every  one  of  these  attributes  as  richly  and  as  substantially 
as  they,  but  who,  now  personally  withdrawn  from  us,  have  no 
place  whatever  either  in  the  praise  or  in  the  remembrance  of  the 
world. 

There  is  one  circumstance  additional  to  all  we  have  enumerated, 
which  serves  to  widen  the  distinction  between  the  effects  of  his 
spoken  and  of  his  written  eloquence,  when  a  preacher  of  sermons 
becomes  an  author  of  sermons.  There  is  generally  a  strong  dis- 
position on  the  part  of  a  people,  to  cherish  a  cordiality  and  a  kind- 
liness of  good- will  towards  their  minister.  Conceive  then  a  min- 
ister not  merely  to  have  done  nothing  to  forfeit  the  attachment  of 
his  hearers,  but  everything  to  enthrone  himself  in  their  hearts, 
and  so  to  have  cultivated  the  duties  of  the  pastoral  relation,  as  to 
have  become  an  object  of  devoted  and  enthusiastic  regard  to  all 
his  congregation.  Here  is  a  peculiar  source  of  impression  with 
which  the  public  at  large  cannot  possibly  sympathize.  They  can- 
not be  made  to  feel  like  his  own  people  the  personal  worth  of  him 
who  is  addressing  them,  nor  to  kindle  at  the  warmth  of  his  known 

22 


170 


DIFFERENCE    BETWEEN    SPOKEN 


and  affectionate  anxiety  for  their  best  interests,  nor  to  be  grateful 
for  his  unwearied  kindness  to  themselves  and  their  families,  nor  to 
read  with  indulgence  what  they  are  sure  has  flowed  from  the  in- 
spiration of  fervent  piety,  nor  to  associate  with  the  composition  all 
that  weight  of  authority  which  lies  in  the  character  of  him  who 
gave  it  birth,  nor  to  hear  the  voice  and  perceive  the  expression 
of  an  unquestionable  friendship,  throughout  all  its  pages.  In  these 
circumstances  a  congregation  is  not  to  w7onder,  if  the  suffrage  of 
the  public  voice  shall  not  altogether  harmonize  with  the  acclama- 
tions of  their  loud  and  sincere  popularity ;  or  if  they  who  are  in 
full  possession  of  all  those  accompaniments  which  give  an  aid  and 
an  energy  to  every  sentence  of  the  volume  that  has  been  pre- 
sented to  them,  shall  both  feel  its  merits  and  sound  its  eulogies  far 
beyond  the  pitch  of  its  distant  and  general  estimation. 

This  circumstance  may  serve  to  explain  the  cause  of  the  multi- 
plicity of  those  volumes  of  sermons  which  are  annually  presented 
to  the  world.  But  it  will  do  more  than  explain,  it  will  also  justify 
this  multiplicity.  However  little  the  community  at  large  may  be 
attracted  by  the  nakedness  of  the  written  composition,  it  comes  to 
the  people  who  heard  it  with  the  force  of  all  those  associations 
which  gave  their  peculiar  effect  to  the  spoken  addresses  of  their 
minister.  They  read  the  volume  differently  from  others  ;  for  they 
read  it  with  the  recollection  upon  them  of  the  tone,  and  the  man- 
ner, and  the  earnestness,  and  the  impassionate  vehemency  of  its 
author.  They  read  it  with  the  whole  impression  of  his  personal 
influence  and  character  upon  their  minds  ;  and  this  renders  the 
volume  a  more  useful  and  a  more  affecting  memorial  to  them,  than 
it  ever  can  be  to  the  public  at  large.  And  this  is  a  reason  that, 
apart  from  general  advantage  altogether,  volumes  of  sermons 
should  be  frequently  published  for  the  good  of  the  congregation 
in  whose  hearing  they  were  delivered.  It  is  true  that  the  tame- 
ness  of  many  sermons,  and  the  exceeding  frequency  of  their  ap- 
pearance before  the  eyes  of  the  world,  have  served  to  vulgarize 
and  to  degrade  them  in  the  common  estimation  ;  but  the  benefit 
they  confer  on  those  to  whom  their  author  is  endeared  by  the  ties 
of  long  and  affectionate  intercourse,  much  more  than  compensates 
for  that  humble  rank  on  the  field  of  general  literature,  to  which 
this  class  of  compositions  has  now  fallen. 

These  remarks  by  no  means  apply  in  their  full  extent  to  the 
volume  that  is  now  before  us.*  It  possesses  undoubted  claims  on 
the  general  attention  of  the  public  ;  but  the  deductions  to  which 
we  have  now  adverted,  must  in  a  greater  or  less  degree  be  made 
from  every  book  of  sermons.  And  accordingly  we  cannot  but  re- 
mark of  the  present  volume,  that  however  high  and  however  well 
founded  its  claims  may  be,  it  does  not  in  our  judgment  present  to 
the  world  at  large  an  adequate  impress  of  that  power  of  concep- 
tion, that  richness  of  fancy,  that  versatility  of  illustration,  that  de- 

*  The  work  reviewed  in  this  paper  was  Dr.  Jones'  Sermons. 


AND    WRITTEN    LANGUAGE.  171 

cisive  boldness  of  announcement,  that  warmth  of  pastoral  tender- 
ness, and  even  that  capability  of  impressive  and  significant  lan- 
guage, which  we  know  the  author  to  possess,  and  by  the  weekly 
display  of  which  he  so  often  transports  and  overpowers  the  sensi- 
bilities of  his  own  congregation.  We  trust  that  the  work  before 
us  will  stand  high  in  general  estimation  ;  but  we  think  that  on  the 
strength  of  the  above  remarks  we  may  say  with  certainty  of  the 
sermons,  that  they  will  not  occupy  the  same  rank  in  general  au- 
thorship, which  they  do  in  the  esteem  of  those  who  sit  under  the 
ministrations  of  Dr.  Jones,  and  bear  witness  to  those  rapid  ener- 
gies both  of  thought  and  of  expression,  which  in  the  moment  of 
delivery  he  brings  so  successfully  into  action. 

This  author  is,  in  the  whole  style  and  substance  of  his  senti- 
ments, evangelical.  It  is  quite  clear  from  these  sermons,  that  were 
he  formally  questioned  as  to  his  faith  in  the  leading  peculiarities 
of  the  Gospel,  there  is  not  one  of  them  which  he  would  not  most 
firmly  and  most  zealously  recognize.  And  this  may  be  ascer- 
tained in  two  ways  ; — either  directly — by  the  precise  and  positive 
announcements  which  the  author  makes  upon  the  subject,  or  in- 
directly— by  the  obviously  prevailing  tone  which  his  belief  in  the 
truths  of  the  New  Testament  gives  to  all  his  remarks.  Now,  there 
is  a  numerous  class  both  of  readers  and  of  hearers,  who  will  not  be 
satisfied,  except  on  the  first  evidence,  of  the  orthodoxy  of  him  who 
addresses  them.  There  is  what  we  would  call  a  morbid  jealousy 
upon  this  subject ;  and  the  preacher,  if  conscious  of  its  existence, 
will  go  out  of  his  direct  and  natural  way  for  the  purpose  of 
meeting  and  appeasing  it.  Nay,  such  is  the  power  of  sympathy, 
that  this  jealousy  on  the  part  of  others  will  often  excite  his  own 
apprehensions ;  and,  to  insure  his  own  orthodoxy,  he  will  con- 
stantly make  the  most  obtrusive  and  ostentatious  displays  of  it — 
fearful  lest  every  sentiment  should  not  be  in  express  and  visible 
subordination  to  the  strictest  principles  of  Calvinism.  He  will 
not  venture  to  urge  a  single  duty,  without  guarding  the  exhortation 
by  an  interposed  remark  about  the  doctrine  of  merit,  or  of  spirit- 
ual influence  ;  and  thus  laboring  under  the  burden  of  the  whole 
system,  he  will  prosecute  his  tardy  way  through  the  fields  of  prac- 
tical Christianity — encumbering  himself  with  the  task  of  bringing 
out  into  manifest  and  undeniable  display,  the  consistency  of  all 
that  proceeds  from  him,  with  the  articles  of  the  evangelical  creed. 

Now  it  would  seem  that  a  mature  and  established  faith  in  these 
articles,  would  give  rise  to  a  freer  and  more  spontaneous  and  un- 
trammelled style  of  observation,  both  on  the  duties  and  on  the 
truths  of  the  Christian  religion.  They  will  come  at  length  rather 
to  be  proceeded  on,  than  to  be  made  the  subjects  of  distinct  and 
repeated  avowal.  They  will  not  be  so  frequently  nor  so  system- 
atically asserted  as  at  first ;  because,  altogether  free  from  any 
conscious  disposition  on  his  own  part  to  question  the  truth  of 
them,  a  Christian  author  will  take  them  up  as  unquestionable,  and 


172  DIFFERENCE    BETWEEN    SPOKEN 

turn  them  to  their  immediate  and  their  practical  application.  He 
at  length  loses  sight  of  them  as  topics  of  controversy  ;  and  resting 
in  them  with  a  kind  of  axiomatic  confidence,  he  will  consider  it 
as  quite  unnecessary  to  vindicate  or  to  avow  them,  or  expatiate 
upon  them,  at  every  step  in  the  train  of  his  observations.  In  this 
way  the  train  will  get  on  more  quickly,  and  the  observations  will 
be  greatly  more  multiplied  ;  a  wider  range  will  be  taken  by  him, 
who,  emancipated  from  all  his  fears  and  from  all  his  scrupulosi- 
ties, will  feel  himself  at  liberty  to  make  a  bold  and  immediate  en- 
trance upon  every  question  of  duty  which  presents  itself,  and  to 
draw  his  illustrations  from  every  quarter  of  human  experience; 
and  hence  it  is,  that  he  will  not  be  ever  at  the  work  of  laying  the 
foundation ;  but  with  a  mind  already  made  up  on  all  the  essential 
elements  of  the  Christian  faith,  he  will  for  that  very  reason  be  at 
large  for  a  more  extended  scope,  and  be  able  to  lay  before  his 
readers  a  richer  and  more  abundant  variety. 

But  we  have  dwelt  sufficiently  long  on  the  preliminaries  of  the 
subject,  and  must  now  proceed  to  lay  before  the  reader  a  few  ex- 
tracts from  the  book  itself.  Its  author  appears  to  possess  that 
mature  and  established  faith,  to  which  we  have  just  alluded.  All 
his  perceptions  are  evidently  those  of  an  evangelical  mind,  but  of 
a  mind  so  habitually  and  so  thoroughly  imbued  with  the  essential 
peculiarities  of  the  New  Testament,  that  they  have  long  ceased  to 
offer  themselves  in  that  questionable  light,  which  tends  to  excite 
so  much  vehement  asseveration  about  them,  from  less  confident 
and  less  experienced  theologians.  And  accordingly,  one  great, 
charm  of  his  sermons  is,  that  they  are  altogether  free  from  that 
rigidity  of  complexion,  which  the  intolerance  and  the  jealousy  of 
system  too  often  impart  to  the  performances  of  many  Christian 
writers.  He  compromises  no  truth.  He  betrays  no  dereliction 
of  the  principles  of  that  faith  which  was  once  delivered  to  the 
saints.  Nay,  when  they  form  the  direct  topic  of  his  expositions, 
he  most  fully  and  most  earnestly  contends  for  them.  But  instead 
of  constantly  laboring  after  the  defence  and  establishment  of  these 
principles,  he  appears  to  give  a  far  more  effective  testimony  to 
their  reality  and  importance,  by  assuming  them,  and  adopting 
them,  and  conducting  us  at  once  to  that  subject  which  is  more 
nearly  and  immediately  allied  to  the  text  of  Scripture  he  has  fixed 
upon. 

In  the  second  sermon,  on  the  Reward  of  receiving  a  Prophet, 
preached  upon  the  introduction*  of  a  minister  among  his  people, 
we  have  the  following  sound  and  judicious  advice  to  the  people  on 
the  subject  of  their  week-day  intercourse  with  their  clergyman. 

*  It  is  customary  in  Scotland,  that  on  the  first  sabbath  of  a  minister's  connection  with 
his  people,  the  forenoon  service  should  be  conducted  by  a  clerical  friend  of  his  own,  who 
on  preaching  an  appropriate  sermon  on  the  duties  of  ministers  and  people  is  said  to  in- 
troduce the  minister  to  his  new  congregation. 


AND    WRITTEN    LANGUAGE.  173 

"  The  object  of  his  ministry,  remember,  is  spiritual ;  and  you  receive  him 
with  the  avowed  intention  of  being  assisted  by  him  in  forming  your  spiritual 
character.  Take  heed  that  you  do  not  secularize  him  ;  for,  if  you  do,  the 
grand  object  of  his  settlement  among  you  will  be  lost.  Receive  him  to  the 
hospitality  of  your  families ;  but  let  not  your  table  become  to  him  a  snare. 
Treat  him  as  your  companion  and  your  friend  ;  but  never  reduce  him  to  the 
painful  alternative  of  leaving  your  company,  or  compromising  his  character."— 
pp.  05,  66. 

Dr.  Jones  has  long  been  considered  as  a  master  in  the  art  of 
arrangement, — of  constructing  such  a  skilful  and  comprehensive 
frame-work  of  a  discourse,  as  enables  him,  by  the  filling  up  of  its 
separate  compartments,  to  exhaust  the  text,  and  the  subject  em- 
braced by  it.  And  we  are  persuaded  from  the  examples  of  this 
in  the  sermons  before  us,  that  he  would  offer  an  acceptable  ser- 
vice to  the  public,  by  presenting  to  them  his  compendiary  views 
of  the  many  texts  he  has  elucidated  in  the  course  of  his  lengthened 
and  laborious  ministry. 

We  have  already  prepared  the  reader  for  the  freedom  and  the 
frequency  of  this  author's  descents  into  all  the  minute  and  actual 
varieties  of  human  experience.  In  his  sermon  on  the  Benefits  of 
Religious  Worship  to  a  man's  own  household,  we  are  much 
pleased  at  the  readiness  with  which  he  enters  into  all  the  relations 
of  a  family.  He  is  we  think  very  usefully  employed,  when  he 
steps  into  these  every-day  scenes,  and  prosecutes  his  remarks  on 
such  familiar  exhibitions  of  human  life  as  the  following. 

"  Men  of  an  irreligious  character  generally  rush  into  the  married  state,  either 
from  unjustifiable  motives,  or  with  too  high  ideas  of  the  felicity  which  it  ought 
to  confer.  The  natural  consequence  is,  that  they  soon  meet  with  disappoint- 
ment. But,  instead  of  imputing  this,  as  they  ought,  to  their  own  folly  and 
rashness,  they  either  unfairly  lay  the  blame  on  the  state  itself,  or  ungenerously 
attach  it  to  the  person  with  whom  they  have  entered  into  it.  Hence,  to  the 
most  idolatrous  professions  of  attachment,  succeed  the  most  marked  neglect,  the 
most  frigid  coolness,  the  most  brutish  severity  of  temper,  language,  and  con- 
duct ;  the  wife  becomes  the  most  miserable  of  mortals  ;  and  of  all  her  misery 
her  husband  is  the  author.  The  religious  man,  on  the  contrary,  instructed  by 
the  doctrines  of  the  Gospel,  will  choose  his  companion  for  life  from  among  those 
who  fear  the  Lord ;  and  towards  her  the  predilection  of  judgment,  and  the 
affection  of  nature,  are  strengthened  and  improved  by  the  principle  of  grace, 
flis  ideas  of  human  felicity  being  corrected  by  the  declarations  of  religion,  and 
a  sense  of  personal  depravity,  instead  of  disappointment,  he  experiences  more 
real  happiness  in  that  state  than  his  most  sanguine  hopes  had  anticipated.  Well 
he  knows,  that  in  human  beings  perfect  wisdom  and  goodness  do  not  reside. 
Should  he,  therefore,  discover  in  his  wife  a  portion  of  that  imperfection  which 
enters  into  the  character  of  every  mortal  creature,  instead  of  alienating  his 
affections,  it  will  lead  him  to  redouble  his  expressions  of  attachment  and  ten- 
derness towards  her.  To  love  her  person,  to  provide  for  her  wants,  to  anti- 
cipate her  wishes,  to  alleviate  her  pains,  to  prevent  her  fears,  to  raise  her 
thoughts  to  Heaven,  to  assist  her  in  placing  her  confidence  in  the  Rock  of  ages, 
to  promote  her  happiness  and  joy,  are  the  subjects  of  his  unremitted  attention 
and  prayers.  A  man  himself,  of  like  passions  with  others,  he  will  not  escape 
his  share  of  provocation  and  offence;  but  conscience  before  God  and  towards 
his  wife,  will  lead  him  sternly  and  successfully  to  repel  their  influence," — pp. 
109,  110. 


174  DIFFERENCE    BETWEEN    SPOKEN 

"  Although  the  head  of  a  family,  when  religious,  is  its  greatest  blessing,  yet 
if  religion  reign  in  its  other  branches  he  will  not  be  its  only  blessing.  Another 
will  appear,  the  next  in  order,  and  very  little  inferior  in  point  of  importance,  in 
the  wife,  the  mother,  and  the  mistress.  In  her,  if  the  meekness  of  Christ  be 
added  to  the  softness  of  her  sex — if  the  wisdom  which  is  from  above  be  added 
to  natural  sagacity  and  prudence, — if  the  love  of  God  be  combined  with  that 
to  her  husband,  she  will,  by  Divine  grace,  be  an  inestimable  blessing  to  her  fam- 
ily. She  will  soothe  the  cares  of  her  husband,  she  will  increase  his  substance, 
she  will  be  a  most  effectual  assistant  in  carrying  on  the  instruction  and  govern- 
ment of  the  family,  in  which  she  will  promote  affection,  regularity,  and  hap- 
piness ;  she  will  almost  entirely  bear  its  cares,  and  prepare  its  joys ;  she  will 
encourage  the  faith  and  hope  of  every  individual  within  it,  and  will  walk  with 
them  as  an  heir  of  the  grace  of  life." — p.  117. 

"  Nor  must  the  importance  of  servants  in  the  estimate  of  family  happiness, 
be  at  all  overlooked,  for  when  they  are  of  such  as  fear  the  Lord,  they 
are  a  signal  blessing  to  the  family.  In  vain  are  the  most  magnificent  palaces 
erected  at  the  most  enormous  expense :  in  vain  are  they  stored  with  all  the 
profusion  which  the  possession  of  wealth  can  suggest,  and  adorned  with  all  the 
grandeur  which  the  pride  of  rank  can  justify;  in  vain  are  they  surrounded  with 
all  the  pomp  of  greatness,  and  distinguished  as  the  resort  of  the  fashionable 
and  the  gay  ;  with  all  these  advantages,  small,  very  small  indeed,  will  be  the 
comfort  of  their  lords,  if  all  the  while  the  servants  are  perverse,  vexatious,  and 
dishonest." — pp.  118,  119. 

But  this  author  does  not  confine  himself  to  any  one  range  of 
topics.  In  some  of  his  sermons  he  has  selected  a  leading  doctrine 
of  Christianity,  and  in  his  illustration  of  it  he  gives  his  reader  the 
full  advantage  of  that  bold  and  extensive  style  of  thinking  by 
which  he  places  familiar  truths  in  a  new  attitude  and  throws  over 
them  the  light  of  novel  and  original  illustration.  He  has  escaped 
from  that  monotony  of  observation,  into  which  the  training  of  a 
scholastic  orthodoxy  has  drawn  so  many  of  our  theologians.  He 
is  uniformly  scriptural ;  and  it  does  not  appear  that  he  has  uttered 
a  single  sentiment  of  which  the  most  jealous  and  inquisitorial  Cal- 
vinism can  disapprove.  But  he  betrays  none  of  that  tearfulness, 
none  of  that  cautious  keeping  within  the  limits  of  a  defined  rep- 
resentation, which  we  suspect  to  have  had  a  cramping  and  frigo- 
rific  influence  on  much  of  our  modern  preaching.  He  expatiates 
with  all  the  freeness  of  a  mind  at  ease  on  the  subject  of  ortho- 
doxy ;  not  because  he  disdains  or  refines  any  one  of  its  articles, 
but  because,  incorporated  as  they  are  with  his  general  habit  of 
thinking,  he  feels  about  them  all  the  repose  of  a  most  secure  and 
inviolable  attachment.  There  is  accordingly,  even  when  em- 
ployed upon  some  peculiarity  of  the  Christian  faith,  little  of  the 
tone  of  controversy,  and  no  anxious  setting  off  of  his  own  doctrinal 
accuracy,  to  be  met  with ;  but  with  a  mind  evidently  cast  in  the 
mould  of  evangelical  truth,  he  oversteps  all  the  abridged  and  com- 
pendiary  systems  of  theology,  and  feels  himself  free  to  expatiate 
on  a  rich  and  variegated  field  of  observation. 

The  above  remark  was  forcibly  suggested  to  us  by  the  perusal 
of  that  sermon  in  which  Dr.  J.  treats  of  the  power  of  Christ  to 
forgive  sins.     It  has  been  denominated  one  of  the  greatest  secrets 


AND    WRITTEN    LANGUAGE.  175 

of  practical  godliness,  to  combine  a  reigning  sense  of  security  in 
the  forgiveness  of  sin  with  an  earnest  and  an  operative  sentiment 
of  abhorrence  at  sin  itself.  The  believing  contemplation  of  Christ, 
according  to  the  real  character  which  belongs  to  Him,  resolves 
this  mystery ;  and  we  felt  as  if  a  new  flood  of  light  was  bursting 
in  upon  our  mind  on  this  subject  by  that  power  and  liveliness  of 
exhibition  which  characterize  the  sketches  of  our  original  and  ad- 
venturous author.  In  the  compass  of  a  single  paragraph,  he  has, 
to  our  satisfaction,  given  a  convincing  and  impressive  view  of  the 
link,  by  which  justification  and  sanctification  are  riveted  in  the 
person  of  the  same  individual  into  one  close  and  indissoluble  alli- 
ance. He  inquires  into  the  kind  of  power  that  is  requisite  for  the 
forgiveness  of  sins.  It  cannot  be  a  power  to  dispense  with  the 
authority  of  the  law.  It  cannot  be  a  power  to  make  the  law  bend 
to  the  criminal.  It  cannot  be  a  power  to  frustrate  the  object  of 
the  law.  And  none  therefore  can  have  power  to  remit  the  sen- 
tence of  the  law  upon  the  offender,  but  he  who  can  magnify  it  and 
make  it  honorable ;  he  who  can  uphold  it  in  the  immutability  of 
all  its  sanctions  ;  and,  at  the  same  time,  he  who  can  so  turn  and  so 
subdue  the  personal  character  of  the  offender,  that  in  virtue  of  the 
change  of  heart  and  of  inclination  which  has  taken  place  upon 
him,  there  might  be  a  real  security  established  for  his  future  re- 
spect and  obedience  to  all  the  commandments.  It  serves  to  mag- 
nify every  idea  of  the  exquisite  wisdom  which  presided  over  the 
plan  of  our  redemption,  when  we  think  how  all  this  power  meets 
in  Christ  ?  in  Him  who  took  upon  His  own  person  the  punishment 
that  we  should  have  borne ;  in  Him  who,  descending  from  His 
place  of  glory,  has  exalted  the  law  by  putting  Himself  under  the 
weight  of  its  indispensable  sanctions ;  in  Him  who  has  at  the 
same  time  had  such  a  power  committed  to  Him,  that  He  can  rev- 
olutionize by  the  Spirit  which  is  at  his  giving,  the  whole  desires 
and  principles  of  those  who  believe  in  Him,  so  that  they  shall  love 
the  law  of  God,  and  delight  in  rendering  to  it  all  honor  and  all 
obedience.  Contemplating  this  last  as  essential  to  the  power  of 
awarding  forgiveness,  it  will  dispose  us  cordially  to  go  along  with 
the  whole  process  of  sanctification,  to  perceive  that  the  great  Me- 
diator must  renew  those  for  whom  he  has  secured  acceptance 
with  God  before  He  has  completed  His  undertaking  upon  them  ; 
and  that  in  fact  we  are  not  the  subjects  of  His  mediation  unless 
we  are  prosecuting  diligently  the  renewal  of  heart  and  of  mind, 
and  submitting  ourselves  faithfully  to  all  the  requirements  of  holi- 
ness.    But  on  this  subject  let  our  author  speak  for  himself. 

ik  From  what  we  have  now  seen  of  the  nature,  of  forgiveness  of  sins,  it  will 
be  evident,  that  the  person  who  undertakes  to  exercise  this  power  should  first 
of  all  be  inflexibly  just.  The  law  of  God  is  a  charter  of  rights.  With  the 
preservation  of  that  charter,  everything  dear  to  God  and  valuable  to  man  is 
eternally  connected.  To  permit  the  law  to  bend  to  the  criminal  here,  would  be 
attended  with  consequences  of  injustice,  fatal  beyond  all  calculation.     Further, 


176  DIFFERENCE    BETWEEN    SPOKEN 

with  inflexible  justice,  the  person  who  undertakes  to  dispense  forgiveness  should 
be  possessed  of  wisdom  sufficient  to  determine  whether,  if  sin  should  be  forgiven, 
the  object  of  the  law  could  be  secured,  and  supreme  love  to  God,  and  disinter- 
ested love  to  man  be  maintained.  He  must  moreover  possess  a  power  over  the 
law,  to  suspend,  alter,  and  reverse  its  sentence,  which  supposes  a  power  supe- 
rior to  law,  even  to  the  law  of  God.  He  must  also  have  such  power  with  God 
as  to  prevail  with  Him  to  lay  aside  His  anger,  and  to  receive  the  criminal, 
when  forgiven,  into  His  favor.  The  human  heart  must  be  in  his  hand,  and  un- 
der his  control,  so  as  he  may  be  able  to  expel  one  train  of  thoughts  and  opinions, 
and  to  induce  another ;  to  take  away  one  set  of  passions,  and  dispositions,  and 
to  impart  others ;  and,  in  fact,  to  alter  the  whole  nature,  character,  ar.d  con- 
duct of  man.  He  must  have  so  complete  a  dominion  over  Satan,  as  to  be  able 
to  bind  and  dispose  of  him  at  his  will.  All  human  events  must  be  under  his 
absolute  direction,  so  as  not  only  to  create  prosperity  and  adversity,  but  to  pro- 
duce from  them  such  impressions  as  he  may  require.  He  must  have  power 
over  conscience  itself,  to  make  it  speak,  and  speak  with  effect,  when  he  pleases 
and  how  he  pleases.  To  death  he  must  be  able  to  say  come,  and  it  shall  come, 
go,  and  it  shall  go,  and  to  make  its  valley  dark  or  light,  the  portal  of  Heaven, 
or  the  gate  of  hell,  as  he  shall  appoint.  Such  must  be  the  power  of  his  com- 
mand, that  in  obedience  to  it,  the  grave  must  surrender  the  prey  which  it  has 
retained  for  ages.  To  him  it  must  belong  to  open  and  shut  when  he  pleases 
the  bottomless  pit,  and  effectually  to  command  the  waves  of  the  lake  that 
burnetii  with  fire  and  brimstone,  to  recede  or  advance  as  he  may  appoint.  Un- 
der his  control  must  be  the  gates  of  the  New  Jerusalem,  to  open  and  none  be 
able  to  shut,  to  shut  and  none  be  able  to  open,  with  the  cherubim  and  the  ser- 
aphim, and  all  the  host  which  is  within  them  ;  at  his  disposal  must  be  thrones 
and  dominions,  principalities  and  powers,  and  all  the  happiness,  and  all  the 
grandeur  of  the  world  of  glory.  In  short,  however  great  the  power  of  any 
Being  may  be,  unless  it  is  infinitely  just  and  wise,  and  placed  with  a  controlling 
energy  over  the  law  of  God,  and  has  prevaling  influence  with  God  Himself, — 
unless  it  is  equal  to  the  government  of  the  world,  and  death,  and  the  grave,  and 
heaven  and  hell, — in  one  word,  unless  it  be  the  power  of  God,  it  is  not  a 
power  adequate  to  the  remission  of  the  punishment  of  sin  :  for  nothing  less  than 
this  is  the  power  requisite  to  forgive  sins  on  earth." — pp.  143 — 5. 

It  maybe  said  of  Dr.  Jones,  that  he  is  not  an  every-day  writer 
of  sermons.  There  is  a  certain  intrepidity  about  him,  both  in  his 
selection  of  topics,  and  in  the  free  and  original  way  in  which  he 
handles  them.  He  possesses  a  mind  stored  with  a  variety  of  im- 
agery and  of  information ;  and  this  circumstance  enables  him  de- 
lightfully to  blend  with  his  illustrations  of  scriptural  doctrine  both 
the  truths  of  science,  and  all  that  is  most  pleasing  and  attractive 
in  the  contemplations  of  poetry.  We  are  quite  sensible  however, 
that  in  the  exhibition  he  is  now  making  before  the  public,  he  feels 
himself  to  be  upon  ceremony,  and  accordingly  he  has  put  the  ex- 
uberance of  his  fancy  under  evident  chastisement  and  restraint. 
There  does  not  appear  to  be  that  power  and  vivacity  of  illustra- 
tion, nor  that  copiousness  of  allusion,  nor  that  fearless  application 
of  the  lessons  of  philosophy  and  experience,  nor  that  excursive 
boldness  and  variety  of  remark,  which  are  well  known  to  signal- 
ize his  extemporaneous  oratory,  and  by  which  he  makes  himself 
highly  interesting  and  impressive  to  his  hearers.  Still,  however, 
though  in  print  he  falls  beneath  his  own  habitual  excellence  in  the 
pulpit,  he  retains  so  much  of  his  peculiarity  and  of  his  power,  as 


AND    WRITTEN    LANGUAGE.  177 

places  him  far  above  the  tame,  insipid,  servile  monotony  of  ordi- 
nary sermon-writers.  And  from  the  volume  before  us,  were  we 
to  multiply  extracts,  we  might  present  our  readers  with  many 
specimens  of  a  mind  that  can  soar  above  the  region  of  common- 
place, and  expatiate  in  the  field  of  its  own  unborrowed  light,  and 
originate  its  own  spontaneous  ingenuities,  and  without  disguising 
or  even  so  much  as  throwing  a  shade  over,  any  of  the  substantial 
prominences  of  the  Gospel,  adorning  the  whole  of  its  doctrine  by 
such  sallies  of  illustration,  as  any  powerful  mind  which  draws 
from  its  own  resources,  and  disowns  the  authority  of  models,  is 
able  to  throw  into  any  track  of  contemplation  over  which  it  may 
happen  to  pass. 

There  are  some  people  possessed  with  such  notions  about  the 
simplicity  of  the  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus,  that  the  very  appearance 
of  originality  alarms  them.  But  it  by  no  means  necessarily  fol- 
lows that  a  writer  on  practical  Christianity  is,  every  time  that  he 
stretches  his  ingenuity,  working  out  a  laborious  deviation  from 
what  is  useful  and  applicable  to  the  familiarities  of  human  conduct 
and  human  sentiment.  Every  attempt  to  be  wise  above  that  which 
is  written,  should  be  discouraged,  as  being  opposed  to  the  spirit 
both  of  piety  and  of  true  philosophy.  But  still  there  is  room  for 
the  exercise  of  our  best  and  our  highest  faculties  in  the  attempt  to 
be  wise  up  to  that  which  is  written  ;  nor  do  we  think  that  any  fair 
conclusions  drawn  from  such  premises  as  are  supplied  by  the 
written  record,  can  be  unprofitable  for  our  instruction  in  right- 
eousness. In  his  sermon  on  the  "  Doctrine  of  Salvation  the  Study 
of  Angels,"  Dr.  Jones  has  given  us  a  happy  example  of  the  use  to 
which  a  subject  apparently  remote  from  the  powers  of  human 
contemplation,  may  be  turned.  In  his  reflections  on  the  utility  of 
the  truth  contained  in  his  text,  he  has  said,  and  said  powerfully 
and  irresistibly,  as  much  as  should  rescue  the  doctrine  of  Salva- 
tion from  unworthy  treatment,  and  give  it  a  dignity  in  the  eyes  of 
men.  And  we  consider  this  as  one  out  of  several  examples  in 
which  the  author  before  us  has  even  in  his  boldest  and  loftiest 
flights  gathered  a  something  to  strengthen  our  more  ordinary  im- 
pressions, and  to  enforce  and  illuminate  the  duties  of  our  more  or- 
dinary practice  ;  and  without  that  slenderness  of  effect  which  the 
refinement  of  our  over-wrought  contemplation  sometimes  leaves 
behind  it,  he  often  succeeds  by  a  novelty  which  marks  his  every 
tract  of  sentiment  and  observation  in  augmenting  and  perpetuat- 
ing the  influence  of  what  is  most  palpable  in  the  lessons  of  the 
New  Testament. 

"  Many  deem  the  doctrine  of  Salvation  low,  mean,  vulgar,  and  worthless ; 
and  they  attempt  to  vindicate  their  conduct  by  saying  with  the  unbelieving 
Jews,  which  of  the  scribes  or  rulers,  which  of  the  highly  esteemed  or  dignita- 
ries of  our  church,  make  it  the  theme  of  their  beautiful  addresses  or  fine  ha- 
rangues 1  Which  of  our  celebrated  men  of  science,  discrimination,  and  taste, 
even  amongst  ecclesiastics,  make  it  the  object  of  their  study,  or  the  subject  of 

23 


178  DIFFERENCE    BETWEEN    SPOKEN 

their  discourse  ?  Does  not  the  preaching  of  this  salvation  provoke  contempt 
and  scorn,  and  expose  it  to  the  resistless,  overwhelming,  degrading  imputation 
of  methodism  and  fanaticism  ?  And  yet  angels,  fascinated  by  its  charms,  sus- 
pending their  studies  of  nature  and  their  lofty  pursuits  in  Heaven,  descend 
from  the  celestial  world  to  look  into  the  salvation  of  Jesus ;  and  whilst  they 
look,  they  discover  new  beauties  and  new  wonders  incessantly  arise,  which  con- 
tinually kindle  a  desire  again  to  look  and  continue  the  research.  They  bend  and 
again  they  bend  their  lofty  minds,  and  cannot  quit  the  object ;  and  by  their 
conduct  they  seem  to  unite  in  sentiment  with  St.  Paul,  when  he  said,  '  Yea, 
doubtless,  and  I  count  all  things  but  loss  for  the  excellency  of  the  knowledge 
of  Christ  Jesus  my  Lord.'  Yes  !  angels  are  captivated  by  the  doctrines  of 
salvation,  which  men  presume  to  neglect ;  and  archangels  admire  with  rapture 
what  men  affect  to  despise.  Surely  this  should  convince  them  of  their  folly, 
discover  to  them  the  evils  of  their  ways,  and  rescue  the  doctrine  of  salvation 
from  such  unworthy  treatment." — pp.  288 — 9. 

We  trust  that  the  following  extracts  will  both  vindicate  and  ex- 
emplify all  that  we  have  said  in  our  attempts  to  sketch  the  char- 
acteristic merits  and  peculiarities  of  this  author. 

"  While  Christ  ascended,  His  heart  overflowed  with  love  ;  His  countenance 
beamed  benignity ;  His  lips  uttered  blessings ;  His  hands  dispensed  grace. 
Whilst  He  ascended,  His  sacred  person  was  clothed  with  the  robes  of  light 
and  immortality.  He  made  the  clouds  His  chariot,  and  He  rode  on  the  wings 
of  the  wind.  A  scene  in  every  respect  so  sublime  and  so  grand,  was  never 
before,  nor  never  since  exhibited  to  men  or  to  angels.  He  shall  so  come  in  like 
manner,  visibly,  majestically,  in  the  sight  of  the  general  assembly  and  church 
of  the  first  born,  with  shouts,  with  the  voice  of  the  archangel,  and  the  trump 
of  God,  attended  by  the  cherubim  and  the  seraphim,  and  all  the  heavenly  host ; 
His  heart  overflowing  with  love ;  His  countenance  beaming  benignity ;  His 
lips  uttering  blessing  ;  His  hands  dispensing  glory  ;  His  sacred  person  clothed 
with  the  robes  of  light  and  immortality,  making  the  clouds  His  chariot,  and 
riding  on  the  wings  of  the  wind.  When  He  had  overcome  the  enemies  which 
in  the  days  of  His  humiliation  opposed  Him,  He  ascended  to  dispense  judg- 
ment. When  He  shall  have  overcome  all  His  enemies,  He  shall  so  come  in 
like  manner  to  judge  the  quick  and  the  dead  :  to  erect  His  awful  tribunal ;  and 
to  summon  before  it  the  whole  human  race ;  and  to  render  eternal  life  or  ever- 
lasting death  to  each  man,  according  as  his  work  shall  be.  There  are  two 
laws  of  nature  which,  like  all  its  operations,  are  very  simple  in  themselves,  but 
mighty  and  wonderful  in  their  effects.  The  one  is  that  of  attraction,  by  which 
one  particle  unites  or  coheres  to  another.  The  other  is  that  of  gravitation,  by 
which  things  have  a  tendency  to  fall  to  the  centre  of  the  earth.  By  these  two 
principles,  God  preserves  in  their  appointed  situation  and  order,  animals,  and 
vegetables,  and  minerals,  and  the  sea,  and  the  dry  land,  and  rivers,  and  moun- 
tains ;  by  these  he  firmly  binds  together  all  the  atoms  which  compose  the  world, 
and  girds  the  solid  globe.  By  the  same  laws  He  both  directs  the  motions,  and 
preserves  the  order  of  the  sun,  and  the  moon,  and  the  planetary  orbs.  But 
when  our  Lord  ascended,  He  evinced  His  authority  and  power  over  these  laws; 
He  burst  t heir  mighty  chains,  and  in  opposition  to  their  most  powerful  restraints, 
He  rose  from  earth  and  soared  above  the  ethereal  heavens.  In  like  manner. 
He  shall  so  come.  lie  shall  dissolve  the  bonds  of  gravitation,  and  the  sun,  and 
the  moon,  and  the  stars,  shall  fall ;  the  mountains  shall  remove :  and  the  rivers 
shall  fail;  and  the  sea  shall  be  dried  up;  and  the  solid  globe  shall  be  rent 
asunder  in  every  direction.  He  shall  untie  the  cords  of  attraction,  and  parti- 
cle shall  separate  from  particle,  and  atom  from  atom,  and  the  whole  world  shall 
fall  to  pieces,  and  shall  be  no  more.  Thus  the  same  Jesus  who  was  taken  up 
into  Heaven,  shall  so  come  in  like  manner  as  he  was  seen  to  go  into  Heaven." 
—pp.  235—7. 


AND    WRITTEN    LANGUAGE.  179 

"  We  ought  not  to  waste  our  time  in  idle  speculations.  When  Elisha  was 
favored  with  witnessing  the  ascension  of  Elijah,  the  chariots  of  fire  and  the 
horses  of  fire  having  conveyed  him  out  of  his  sight,  he  gathered  up  the  mantle 
which  had  fallen  from  that  great  prophet,  and  hastening  to  the  banks  of  Jordan, 
he  smote  the  waters  and  passed  between  the  divided  parts  of  the  stream,  stop- 
ped not  till  he  arrived  at  Jericho,  and  instantly  began  to  discharge  the  duties 
of  his  office.  But  when  the  disciples  of  our  Lord  were  permitted  to  witness 
His  ascension,  and  to  behold  the  cloud  receive  Him  out  of  their  sight,  they  lin- 
gered on  the  spot ;  they  stood  still ;  they  steadfastly  looked  up  ;  they  gazed  ; 
thoughts  arose  in  their  breasts,  and  questions  started  in  their  minds,  which  they 
seemed  inclined  to  indulge.  Whither  is  He  gone  ?  What  change  has  taken 
place  upon  Him?  What  is  He  now  doing?  They  were  on  the  verge  of  a 
thousand  idle  speculations,  fraught  with  ten  thousand  dangerous  errors.  There 
is  a  point  to  which  speculation  may  advance  with  safety,  when  it  tends  to  en- 
lighten the  mind  with  truth,  to  season  the  heart  with  grace,  and  to  rouse  the 
active  powers  to  holy  conduct.  But  beyond  this,  it  is  vain,  it  is  forbidden,  it 
is  fatal  to  proceed.  At  this  point,  the  disciples  of  our  lord  had  at  this  moment 
arrived.  To  prevent  their  going  beyond  it,  angels  interposed  :  •  Ye  men  of 
Galilee,'  said  they,  '  why  stand  ye  gazing  V  The  moments  of  speculation  are 
over,  and  the  time  for  action  is  come." — pp.  240 — 1. 

We  now  take  leave  of  Dr.  Jones,  with  remarking  that  his  vol- 
ume bears  the  evidence  of  one  who  has  not  accustomed  himself 
much  to  the  practice  of  correct  or  elegant  composition.  He  has 
evidently  read  much,  but  what  he  has  excogitated  for  himself 
forms  a  far  more  abundant  portion  of  his  intellectual  wealth,  than 
what  he  has  appropriated  from  others.  It  would  appear  as  if  the 
power  and  facility  of  his  unwritten  language  had  made  him  so  in- 
dependent of  the  ordinary  means  of  conveyance  by  which  a  min- 
ister transfers  the  product  of  his  own  mind  to  the  minds  of  his 
people,  that  his  views,  and  his  thoughts,  and  his  modes  of  illustra- 
tion, are  no  sooner  conceived,  than  he  is  able  to  transfer  them  at 
once  upon  his  hearers  through  the  channel  of  contemporaneous 
communication.  We  have  no  doubt  that  in  this  way  much  pow- 
erful eloquence,  and  much  solid  instruction,  and  many  felicities  of 
thought  and  of  expression,  which  were  worthy  of  being  preserved, 
are  destined  to  be  forgotten  in  the  course  of  a  few  years,  and  so 
to  perish  forever  from  the  remembrance  of  the  world.  We  are 
glad,  however,  that  the  public  have  been  presented  with  such  a 
memorial  of  the  author,  as  that  which  he  has  now  furnished  ;  and 
if  we  think  it  is  not  an  adequate  representation  of  all  the  talents 
and  accomplishments  of  him  who  has  produced  it,  yet  we  feel 
confident  that  it  is  calculated  to  extend  the  usefulness  of  Dr.  Jones, 
as  well  as  to  advance  his  reputation  beyond  the  narrow  circle  of 
his  own  auditory. 


REMARKS 

ON 

CUVIER'S   THEORY    OF   THE    EARTH; 

IN    EXTRACTS    FROM 

A  REVIEW  OF  THAT  THEORY 

WHICH    WAS    CONTRIBUTED   TO 

"THE  CHRISTIAN  INSTRUCTOR" 

IN  1814. 


"  It  is  not  our  object  to  come  forward  with  a  full  analysis  of 
the  theory  of  Cuvier.  The  appearance  of  the  work  has  afforded 
matter  of  triumph  and  satisfaction  to  the  friends  of  revelation, 
though,  in  these  feelings,  we  cannot  altogether  sympathize  with 
them.  It  is  true  that  his  theory  approximates  to  the  information 
of  the  book  of  Genesis  more  nearly  than  those  of  many  of  his 
predecessors  ;  and  the  occasional  exhibitions  which  appear  in  the 
course  of  his  pages,  have  the  effect  at  least  of  stamping  the  char- 
acter of  a  disinterested  testimony  upon  his  opinions.  This  leads 
us  to  anticipate  the  period  when  there  will  be  a  still  closer  coin- 
cidence between  the  theories  of  geologists  and  the  Mosaical  his- 
tory of  the  creation.  It  is  well  that  there  is  now  a  progress  to 
this  object ;  that  the  chronology  at  least  of  Moses  begins  to  be 
more  respected  ;  that  a  date  so  recent  is  ascribed  to  the  last  great 
catastrophe  of  the  globe,  as  to  make  it  fall  more  closely  upon  the 
deluge  of  the  book  of  Genesis  ;  and  when  we  recollect  the  elo- 
quence, and  the  plausibility,  and  the  imposing  confidence  with 
which  a  theorist  of  the  day  has  magnified  the  antiquity  of  the 
present  system,  we  shall  henceforth  be  less  alarmed  at  anything 
in  the  speculations,  either  of  Cuvier  or  of  others,  which  may  ap- 
pear to  bear  hard  upon  the  credit  of  the  sacred  historian." 

"  He  assigns  no  distinct  cause  for  the  earth's  revolutions,  and 
leaves  us  utterly  at  a  loss  about  the  nature  of  that  impelling  prin- 
ciple, which  gives  rise  to  the  sweeping  and  terrible  movements 


CUVIER  S    THEORY    OF    TI1E    EARTH.  181 

that  are  thought  to  take  place  in  the  waters  of  the  ocean.  We 
expected  something  from  him  upon  this  subject  under  the  article 
of  Astronomical  Causes  of  the  Revolutions  on  the  Earth's  Sur- 
face :  nor  has  he  chosen  to  advert  to  the  theory  of  Laplace,  though 
in  our  apprehension,  it  would  have  imparted  a  great  addition  of 
plausibility  to  the  whole  speculation. 

'•It  is  to  the  diurnal  revolution  of  the  earth  round  its  axis,  that 
we  owe  the  deviation  of  its  figure  from  a  perfect  sphere.  The 
earth  is  so  much  flattened  at  the  poles,  and  so  much  elevated  at  the 
equator,  that,  by  the  mean  calculations  upon  this  subject,  the 
former  are  nearer  to  the  centre  of  the  earth  than  the  latter  by 
thirty-five  English  miles.  What  would  be  the  effect  then,  if  the 
axis  of  revolution  were  suddenly  shifted  ?  If  the  polar  and  equi- 
noctial regions  were  to  change  places,  there  would  be  a  tendecy 
towards  an  elevation  of  so  many  miles  in  the  one,  and  of  as  great 
a  depression  in  the  other,  and  the  more  transferable  parts  of  the 
earth's  surface  would  be  the  first  to  obey  this  tendency." 

"  But  it  is  not  necessary  to  assume  so  entire  a  change  in  the  po- 
sition of  the  earth's  axis,  as  to  produce  a  difference  of  thirty- 
five  miles  in  any  of  the  existing  levels,  nor  would  any  single  im- 
petus, indeed,  suffice  to  accomplish  such  a  change.  The  trans- 
ference of  the  poles  from  their  present  situation  by  a  few  degrees, 
would  give  rise  to  a  revolution  sudden  enough,  and  mighty  enough 
for  all  the  purposes  of  a  geological  theory  ;  and  a  change  of  level 
by  a  single  quarter  of  a  mile,  would  destroy  the  vast  majority  of 
living  animals,  and  create  such  a  harvest  of  fossil  remains,  as 
would  give  abundant  employment  to  a  whole  host  of  future  spec- 
ulators." 

"  Now,  we  have  two  observations  to  offer  on  the  said  theory  ; 
one  in  the  way  of  a  humble  addition,  and  the  other  in  the  way  of 
an  apology  for  it. 

"  First,  from  the  planets  moving  all  nearly  in  circular  orbits,  it 
is  more  likely  that  they  have  done  so  from  the  very  commence- 
ment of  their  revolutions,  than  that  they  started  at  first  with  very 
unequal  eccentricities,  and  have  been  reduced  to  orbits  of  almost 
similar  form  by  the  shocks  which  each  of  them  individually  sus- 
tained from  comets.  Assuming  then,  that  originally  the  orbits 
were  nearly  circular,  how  comes  it  that  they  remain  so,  in  spite 
of  those  numerous  impulses,  which  the  theory  of  Laplace,  com- 
bined with  the  allegation  of  Cuvier  that  the  catastrophes  on  the 
earth  have  been  frequent,  necessarily  implies  ?  Whether  the  im- 
pulse be  in  the  line  of  the  earth's  motion,  which  it  may  very 
nearly  be  with  a  few  of  the  comets,  or  whether  it  cross  that  line 
at  a  considerable  angle,  which  would  be  the  direction  of  the  im- 
pulse with  the  great  majority  of  them,  still  we  cannot  conceive 
from  the  great  velocity  of  the  impelling  body,  how  the  planet  can 
avoid  receiving  from  the  shock,  and  far  more  from  the  repetition 
of  it,  such  a  change  in  its  eccentricity,  as  would  have  given  us  at 


182  cuvier's  theory  of  the  earth. 

this  moment  a  planetary  system  made  up  of  bodies  moving  in 
very  variously  elongated  ellipses.  The  way  of  evading  this  ob- 
jection, is  to  reduce  the  momentum  of  the  comet,  by  assigning  to 
it  as  small  a  density  as  will  suit  the  purpose  ;  but  small  as  it  may 
be,  there  is  momentum  enough,  according  to  the  hypothesis  of 
Laplace,  to  change  the  position  of  the  earth's  axis.  A  repetition 
of  such  impulses  upon  the  different  planets  in  every  conceivable 
variety  of  direction,  would,  in  time,  give  rise  to  a  very  wide  dis- 
similarity in  their  orbits  ;  and  the  fact,  that  such  a  dissimilarity 
does  not  exist,  militates  against  that  indefinite  antiquity,  which  the 
deifiers  of  matter  ascribe  to  the  present  system. 

"But  again,  it  does  not  appear  to  us,  that  the  theory  of  Laplace 
is  insufficient  to  account  for  the  highly  inclined  position  of  strata, 
which  may  have  been  deposited  horizontally.  By  the  conceived 
impulse  of  a  comet,  the  earth  receives  a  tendency  to  a  change  of 
figure.  This  can  only  be  produced  by  the  motion  of  its  parts,  and 
a  force  acting  on  these  parts  is  put  into  operation.  Who  will 
compute  the  strength  of  the  impediment  which  this  force  may  not 
overcome,  or  say  in  how  far  the  cohesion  of  the  solid  materials 
on  the  surface  of  the  globe  will  be  an  effectual  resistance  to  it  ? 
May  not  this  force  act  in  the  very  way  in  which  Cuvier  expres- 
ses the  operation  of  his  catastrophe  ?  May  it  not  break  and  over- 
turn the  strata  ?  And  will  it  not  help  our  conceptions  to  suppose, 
that  masses  of  water,  struggling  in  the  bowels  of  the  earth  for 
a  more  elevated  position,  may  have  force  enough  to  burst  their 
way  through  the  solid  exterior,  and  tainting  and  mingling  with  the 
old  ocean,  may  annihilate  all  the  marine  animals  of  the  former 
era?  Of  the  flood  of  the  book  of  Genesis,  we  read  that  the  foun- 
tains of  the  great  deep*  were  broken  up,  as  well  as  that  the  win- 
dows of  heaven  were  opened. 

"We  feel  vastly  little  either  of  confidence  or  satisfaction,  in  any 
of  these  theories.  It  is  a  mere  contest  of  probabilities  ;  and  an  ac- 
tual and  well  established  testimony  should  be  paramount  to  them 
all.  We  hold  the  testimony  of  Moses  to  supersede  all  this  work 
of  conjecture ;  and  we  shall  presently  take  up  the  subject  of  that 
testimony,  and  inquire  in  how  far  it  goes  to  confirm,  or  to  falsify 
the  speculations  of  this  volume. 

"  The  qualifications  of  M.  Cuvier  as  a  comparative  anatomist, 
give  a  high  authority  to  his  opinion  on  the  nature  of  the  fossil  re- 
mains, and  the  kind  of  animals  of  which  they  form  a  part.  His  inqui- 
ries in  this  volume  are  confined  to  the  remains  of  quadrupeds  ;  and 
the  most  amusing,  and  perhaps  the  soundest  argument  in  the  whole 
book,  is  that  by  which  he  unfolds  his  method  of  constructing  the 
entire  animal  from  some  small  and  solitary  fragment  of  its  skele- 
ton.    We  were  highly  gratified  with  his  discussion  upon  this  sub- 

*  It  is  remarkable  that  the  original  word  for  the  deep  corresponds,  according  to  Dr. 
Campbell,  in  one  of  its  significations,  with  the  New  Testament  hades,  conceived  to  be 
situated  in  the  interior  of  the  earth. 


cuvier's  theory  op  the  earth.  183 

ject,  nor  can  we  resist  the  desire  of  imparting  the  same  gratifica- 
tion to  our  readers,  by  the  following  extract : 

41  Fortunately,  comparative  anatomy,  when  thoroughly  understood,  enables  us 
to  surmount  all  these  difficulties,  as  a  careful  application  of  its  principles  in- 
structs us  in  the  correspondence  and  dissimilarity  of  the  forms  of  organized 
bodies  of  different  kinds,  by  which  each  may  be  rigorously  ascertained  from 
almost  every  fragment  of  its  various  parts  and  organs. 

"  Every  organized  individual  forms  an  entire  system  of  its  own,  all  the  parts 
of  which  mutually  correspond,  and  concur  to  produce  a  certain  definite  pur- 
pose, by  reciprocal  reaction,  or  by  combining  towards  the  same  end.  Hence 
none  of  these  separate  parts  can  change  their  forms  without  a  corresponding 
change  on  the  other  parts  of  the  same  animal,  and  consequently  each  of  these 
parts  taken  separately,  indicates  all  the  other  parts  to  which  it  has  belonged. 
Thus,  as  I  have  elsewhere  shown,  if  the  viscera  of  an  animal  are  so  organized 
as  only  to  be  fitted  for  the  digestion  of  recent  flesh,  it  is  also  requisite  that  the 
jaws  should  be  so  constructed  as  to  fit  them  for  devouring  prey;  the  claws 
must  be  constructed  for  seizing  and  tearing  it  to  pieces ;  the  teeth  for  cutting 
and  dividing  its  flesh  ;  the  entire  system  of  the  limbs,  or  organs  of  motion,  for 
pursuing  and  overtaking  it ;  and  the  organs  of  sense,  for  discovering  it  at  a  dis- 
tance. Nature  also  must  have  endowed  the  brain  of  the  animal  with  instincts 
sufficient  for  concealing  itself,  and  for  laying  plans  to  catch  its  necessary 
victims. 

"  Such  are  the  universal  conditions  that  are  indispensable  in  the  structure  of 
carnivorous  animals ;  and  every  individual  of  that  description  must  necessarily 
possess  them  combined  together,  as  the  species  could  not  otherwise  subsist. 
Under  this  general  rule,  however,  there  are  several  particular  modifications,  de- 
pending upon  the  size,  the  manners,  and  the  haunts  of  the  prey  for  which  each 
species  of  carnivorous  animal  is  destined  or  fitted  by  nature;  and,  from  each 
of  these  particular  modifications,  there  result  certain  differences  in  the  more 
minute  conformations  of  particular  parts ;  all,  however,  conformable  to  the 
general  principles  of  structure  already  mentioned.  Hence  it  follows,  that  in 
every  one  of  their  parts  we  discover  distinct  indications,  not  only  of  the  classes 
and  orders  of  animals,  but  also  of  their  genera,  and  even  of  their  species. 

11  In  fact,  in  order  that  the  jaw  may  be  well  adapted  for  laying  hold  of 
objects,  it  is  necessary  that  its  condyle  should  have  a  certain  form  ;  that  the 
resistance,  the  moving  power,  and  the  fulcrum,  should  have  a  certain  relative 
position  with  respect  to  each  other ;  and  that  the  temporal  muscles  should  be 
of  a  certain  size.  The  hollow  or  depression,  too,  in  which  these  muscles  are 
lodged,  must  have  a  certain  depth ;  and  the  zygomatic  arch  under  which  they 
pass,  must  not  only  have  a  certain  degree  of  convexity,  but  it  must  be  suffi- 
ciently strong  to  support  the  action  of  the  masseter. 

:l  To  enable  the  animal  to  carry  off  its  prey  when  seized,  a  correspondent 
force  is  requisite  in  the  muscles  which  elevate  the  head  ;  and  this  necessarily 
gives  rise  to  a  determinate  form  of  the  vertebra?  to  which  these  muscles  are 
attached,  and  of  the  occiput  into  which  they  are  inserted. 

"  In  order  that  the  teeth  of  a  carnivorous  animal  may  be  able  to  cut  the 
flesh,  they  require  to  be  sharp,  more  or  less  so  in  proportion  to  the  greater  or 
less  quantity  of  flesh  that  they  have  to  cut.  It  is  requisite  that  their  roots 
should  be  solid  and  strong,  in  proportion  to  the  quantity  and  the  size  of  the  bones 
which  they  have  to  break  in  pieces.  The  whole  of  these  cicumstances  must 
necessarily  influence  the  development  and  form  of  all  the  parts  which  contrib- 
ute to  move  the  jaws. 

"  To  enable  the  claws  of  a  carnivorous  animal  to  seize  its  prey,  a  considera- 
ble degree  of  mobility  is  necessary  in  their  paws  and  toes,  and  a  considerable 
strength  in  the  claws  themselves.  From  these  circumstances,  there  necessarily 
result  certain  determinate  forms  in  all  the  bones  of  their  paws,  and  in  the  dis- 


184  CUVIEIt's    THEORY    OF    THE    EARTH. 

tribution  of  the  muscles  and  tendons  by  which  they  are  moved.  The  fore-arm 
must  possess  a  certain  facility  of  moving  in  various  directions,  and  consequently 
requires  certain  determinate  forms  in  the  bones  of  which  it  is  composed.  As  the 
bones  of  the  fore-arm  are  articulated  with  the  arm  bone  or  humerus,  no  change 
can  take  place  in  the  form  and  structure  of  the  fonner,  without  occasioning 
correspondent  changes  in  the  form  of  the  latter.  The  shoulder-blade  also,  or 
scapula,  requires  a  correspondent  degree  of  strength  in  all  animals  destined  for 
catching  prey,  by  which  it  likewise  must  necessarily  have  an  appropriate  form. 
The  play  and  action  of  all  these  parts  require  certain  proportions  in  the  muscles 
which  set  them  in  motion,  and  the  impressions  formed  by  these  muscles  must 
still  farther  determine  the  forms  of  all  these  bones. 

"  After  these  observations,  it  will  be  easily  seen  that  similar  conclusions  may 
be  drawn  with  respect  to  the  hinder  limbs  of  carnivorous  animals,  which  re- 
quire particular  conformations  to  fit  them  for  rapidity  of  motion  in  general ;  and 
that  similar  considerations  must  influence  the  forms  and  connections  of  the  ver- 
tebrae and  other  bones  constituting  the  trunk  of  the  body,  to  fit  them  for  flexi- 
bility and  readiness  of  motion  in  all  directions.  The  bones  also  of  the  nose,  of 
the  orbit,  and  of  the  ears,  require  certain  forms  and  structures  to  fit  them  for 
giving  perfection  to  the  senses  of  smell,  sight  and  hearing,  so  necessary  to  ani- 
mals of  prey.  In  short,  the  shape  and  structure  of  the  teeth  regulate  the  forms 
of  the  condyle,  of  the  shoulder-blade,  and  of  the  claws,  in  the  same  manner  as 
the  equation  of  a  curve,  regulates  all  its  other  properties  ;  and  as  in  regard  to  any 
particular  course,  all  its  properties  may  be  ascertained  by  assuming  each  separate 
property  as  the  foundation  of  a  particular  equation  ;  in  the  same  manner  a  claw, 
a  shoulder-blade,  a  condyle,  a  leg  or  arm  bone,  or  any  other  bone,  separately  con- 
sidered, enables  us  to  discover  the  Ascription  of  teeth  to  which  they  have  be- 
longed ;  and  so  also  reciprocally  weTriay  determine  the  forms  of  the  other  bones 
from  the  teeth.  Thus,  commencing  our  investigation  by  a  careful  survey  of  any 
one  bone  by  itself,  a  person  who  is  sufficiently  master  of  the  laws  of  organic  struc- 
ture, may,  as  it  were,  reconstruct  the  whole  animal  to  which  that  bone  belonged. 

"  This  principle  is  sufficiently  evident,  in  its  general  acceptation,  not  to  re- 
quire any  more  minute  demonstration ;  but  when  it  comes  to  be  applied  in 
practice,  there  is  a  great  number  of  cases  in  which  our  theoretical  knowledge 
of  these  relations  of  forms  is  not  sufficient  to  guide  us,  unless  assisted  by  obser- 
vation and  experience. 

"  For  example,  we  are  well  aware  that  all  hoofed  animals  must  necessarily 
be  herbivorous,  because  they  are  possessed  of  no  means  of  seizing  upon  prey. 
It  is  also  evident,  having  no  other  use  for  their  fore-legs  than  to  support  their 
bodies,  that  they  have  no  occasion  for  a  shoulder  so  vigorously  organized  as 
that  of  carnivorous  animals  ;  owing  to  which  they  have  no  clavicles  or  acro- 
mion processes,  and  their  shoulder-blades  are  proportionally  narrow.  Having 
also  no  occasion  to  turn  their  fore-arms  their  radius  is  joined  by  ossification  to 
the  ulna,  or  is  at  least  articulated  by  the  gynglymus  with  the  humerus.  Their 
food  being  entirely  herbaceous,  requires  teeth  with  flat  surfaces,  on  purpose  to 
bruise  the  seeds  and  plants  on  which  they  feed.  For  this  purpose  also,  these 
surfaces  require  to  be  unequal,  and  are  consequently  composed  of  alternate 
perpendicular  layers  of  hard  enamel  and  softer  bone.  Teeth  of  this  struc- 
ture necessarily  require  horizontal  motions,  to  enable  them  to  triturate  or  grind 
down  the  herbaceous  food  ;  and,  accordingly,  the  condyles  of  the  jaw  could  not 
be  formed  into  such  confined  joints  as  in  the  carnivorous  animals,  but  must  have 
a  flattened  form,  correspondent  to  sockets  in  the  temporal  bones,  which  also  are 
more  or  less  flat  for  their  reception.  The  hollows  likewise  of  the  temporal 
bones,  having  smaller  muscles  to  contain,  are  narrower,  and  not  so  deep,  &c. 
All  these  circumstances  are  deducible  from  each  other,  according  to  their 
greater  or  less  generality,  and  in  such  manner  that  some  are  essentially  and  ex- 
clusively appropriated  to  hoofed  quadrupeds,  while  other  circumstances,  though 
equally  necessary  to  that  description  of  animals,  are  not  exclusively  so,  but  may 


cuvier's  theory  of  the  earth.  185 

be  found  in  animals  of  other  descriptions,  where  other  conditions  permit  or  re- 
quire their  existence. 

"  When  we  proceed  to  consider  the  different  orders  or  subdivisions  of  the 
class  of  hoofed  animals,  and  examine  the  modifications  to  which  the  general 
conditions  are  liable,  or  rather  the  particular  conditions  which  are  conjoined,  ac- 
cording to  tin  respective  characters  of  the  several  subdivisions,  the  reasons 
upon  which  these  particular  conditions  or  rules  of  conformation  are  founded  be- 
come less  evident.  We  can  easily  conceive,  in  general,  the  necessity  of  a  more 
complicated  system  of  digestive  organs  in  those  species  which  have  less  perfect 
masticatory  systems ;  and  hence  we  may  presume  that  these  latter  animals  re- 
quire especially  to  be  ruminant,  which  are  in  want  of  such  or  such  kinds  of 
teeth ;  and  may  also  deduce,  from  the  same  considerations,  the  necessity  of  a 
certain  conformation  of  the  aesophagus,  and  of  corresponding  forms  in  the  ver- 
tebrae of  the  neck,  &c.  But  I  doubt  whether  it  would  have  been  discovered, 
independently  of  actual  observation,  that  ruminant  animals  should  all  have 
cloven  hoofs,  and  that  they  should  be  the  only  animals  having  that  particular 
conformation  ;  that  the  ruminant  animals  only  should  be  provided  with  horns 
on  their  foreheads  ;  that  those  among  them  which  have  sharp  tusks,  or  canine 
teeth,  should  want  horns,  &c. 

"  As  all  these  relative  conformations  are  constant  and  regular,  we  may  be  as- 
sured that  they  depend  upon  some  sufficient  cause  ;  and  since  we  are  not  ac- 
quainted with  that  cause,  we  must  here  supply  the  defect  of  theory  by  observa- 
tion, and  in  this  way  lay  down  empirical  rules  on  the  subject,  which  are  almost 
as  certain  as  those  deduced  from  rational  principles,  especially  if  established  upon 
careful  and  repeated  observation.  Hence,  any  one  who  observes  merely  the 
print  of  a  cloven  hoof,  may  conclude  that  it  has  been  left  by  a  ruminant  amimal, 
and  regard  the  conclusion  as  equally  certain  with  any  other  in  physics  or  in 
morals.  Consequently,  this  single  foot-mark  clearly  indicates  to  the  observer 
the  forms  of  the  teeth,  of  the  jaws,  of  the  vertebras,  of  all  the  leg-bones,  thighs, 
shoulders,  and  of  the  trunk  of  the  body  of  the  animal  which  left  the  mark.  It 
is  much  surer  than  all  the  marks  of  Zadig.  Observation  alone,  independent 
entirely  of  general  principles  of  philosophy,  is  sufficient  to  show  that  there 
certainly  are  secret  reasons  for  all  these  relations  of  which  I  have  been  speaking. 

"  When  we  have  established  a  general  system  of  these  relative  conforma- 
tions of  animals,  we  not  only  discover  specific  constancy,  if  the  expression  may 
be  allowed,  between  certain  forms  of  certain  organs,  and  certain  other  forms  of 
different  organs ;  we  can  also  perceive  a  classified  constancy  of  conformation, 
and  a  correspondent  gradation  between  these  two  sets  of  organs,  which  demon- 
strate their  mutual  influence  upon  each  other,  almost  as  certainly  as  the  most 
perfect  deduction  of  reason.  For  example,  the  masticatory  system  is  generally 
more  perfect  in  the  non-ruminant  hoofed  quadrupeds  than  it  is  in  the  cloven- 
hoofed  or  ruminant  quadrupeds  ;  as  the  former  possess  incisive  teeth,  or  tusks, 
or  almost  always  both  of  these,  in  both  jaws.  The  structure  also  of  their  feet 
is  in  general  more  complicated,  having  a  greater  number  of  toes,  or  their  pha- 
langes less  enveloped  in  the  hoof,  or  a  greater  number  of  distinct  metacarpal 
and  metatarsal  bones,  or  more  numerous  tarsal  bones,  or  the  fibula  more  com- 
pletely distinct  from  the  tibia ;  or,  finally,  that  all  these  enumerated  circum- 
stances are  often  united  in  the  same  species  of  animal. 

"  It  is  quite  impossible  to  assign  reasons  for  these  relations ;  but  we  are  cer- 
tain that  they  are  not  produced  by  mere  chance,  because,  whenever  a  cloven- 
hoofed  animal  has  any  resemblance  in  the  arrangement  of  its  teeth  to  the  an- 
imals we  now  speak  of,  it  has  the  resemblance  to  them  also  in  the  arrangement 
of  its  feet.  Thus  camels,  which  have  tusks,  and  also  two  or  four  incisive 
teeth  in  the  upper-jaw,  have  one  additional  bone  in  the  tarsus,  their  scaphoid 
and  cuboid  bones  not  being  united  into  one ;  and  have  also  very  small  hoofs 
with  corresponding  phalanges,  or  toe-bones.  The  musk  animals,  whose  tusks 
are  remarkably  conspicuous,  have  a  distinct  fibula  as  long  as  the  tibia  ;  while 

24 


186         cuvier's  theory  of  the  earth. 

the  other  cloven-footed  animals  have  only  a  small  bone  articulated  at  the  lower 
end  of  the  tibia  in  place  of  a  fibula.  We  have  thus  a  constant  mutual  relation 
between  the  organs  of  conformations,  which  appear  to  have  no  kind  of  connec- 
tion with  each  other  ;  and  the  gradations  of  their  forms  invariably  correspond, 
even  in  those  cases  in  which  we  cannot  give  the  rationale  of  their  relations. 

"  By  thus  employing  the  method  of  observation,  where  theory  is  no  longer 
able  to  direct  our  views,  we  procure  astonishing  results.  The  smallest  frag- 
ment of  bone,  even  the  most  apparently  insignificant  apophysis,  possesses  a 
fixed  and  determinate  character,  relative  to  the  class,  order,  genus  and  species 
of  the  animal  to  which  it  belonged  ;  insomuch,  that  when  we  find  merely  the 
extremity  of  a  well-preserved  bone,  we  are  able,  by  careful  examination,  assist- 
ed by  analogy  and  exact  comparison,  to  determine  the  species  to  which  it  once 
belonged,  as  certainly  as  if  we  had  the  entire  animal  before  us.  Before  ventur- 
ing to  put  entire  confidence  in  this  method  of  investigation,  in  regard  to  fossil 
bones,  I  have  very  frequently  tried  it  with  portions  of  bones  belonging  to  well- 
known  animals,  and  always  with  such  complete  success  that  I  now  entertain 
no  doubt  with  regard  to  the  results  which  it  affords.  I  must  acknowledge  that 
I  enjoy  every  kind  of  advantage  for  such  investigations  that  could  possibly  be 
of  use,  by  my  fortunate  situation  in  the  Museum  of  Natural  History ;  and,  by 
assiduous  researches  for  nearly  fifteen  years,  I  have  collected  skeletons  of  all 
the  genera  and  sub-genera  of  quadrupeds,  with  those  of  many  species  in  some 
of  the  genera,  and  even  of  several  varieties  of  some  species.  With  these  aids, 
I  have  found  it  easy  to  multiply  comparisons,  and  to  verify,  in  every  point  of 
view,  the  application  of  the  foregoing  rules." — pp.  90 — 102. 

"  Now,  this  is  a  most  interesting  specimen  of  M.  Cuvier.  It 
bespeaks  the  tone  and  the  habit  of  a  philosopher,  and  is  well  cal- 
culated to  gain  a  favorable  hearing,  if  not  an  authority,  to  all  his 
other  speculations.  But  it  is  quite  true  that  a  man  may  excel  in 
one  department  of  investigation,  and  fall  short  in  another ;  and 
none  more  ready  than  the  antemosaical  philosophers,  who  oppose 
him,  to  exclaim,  that,  though  M.  Cuvier  be  a  good  anatomist,  it 
does  not  follow  that  he  is  a  geologist.  Now  we  profess  to  be 
neither  the  one  nor  the  other.  The  science  of  our  professional 
department  is  different  from  both,  and  all  that  we  ask  of  the  geo- 
logical infidels  of  the  day  is,  that  they  will  do  us  the  same  justice 
in  reference  to  their  speculations,  that  they  take  to  themselves  in 
reference  to  M.  Cuvier.  A  man  may  be  a  good  geologist,  and  be 
able  to  construct  as  good  a  system  as  the  mineralogical  appear- 
ances around  him  enable  him  to  do.  But  this  system  is  neither 
more  nor  less  than  the  announcement  of  past  facts,  and  geology 
forms  only  one  of  the  channels  by  which  we  may  reach  them. 
But  there  are  other  channels,  and  the  most  direct  and  obvious  of 
them  all  to  the  knowledge  of  the  past  is  the  channel  of  history. 
The  recorded  testimony  of  those  who  were  present  or  nearer  than 
ourselves  to  the  facts  in  question,  we  hold  to  be  a  likelier  path  to 
the  information  we  are  in  quest  of,  than  the  inferences  of  a  distant 
posterity  upon  the  geological  phenomena  around  them,  just  as  an 
actual  history  of  the  legislation  of  old  governments,  is  a  trustier 
document  than  an  ingenious  speculation  on  the  progress  and  the 
principles  of  human  society.  You  protest  against  the  knife  and 
demonstrations  of  the  anatomist  as  instruments  of  no  authority  in 


CUVIERS  THEORY  OF  THE  EARTH.  187 

your  department.  We  protest  against  the  hammer  of  the  mine- 
ralogist and  the  reveries  of  the  geologian,  as  instruments  of  no  au- 
thority in  ours.  You  think  that  Cuvier  is  very  slender  in  geology, 
and  that  he  has  been  most  unphilosophically  rash  in  leaving  his 
own  province,  and  carrying  his  confident  imaginations  into  a  to- 
tally different  field  of  inquiry.  We  cannot  say,  that  you  are  very 
slender  in  the  philosophy  of  history  and  historical  evidence,  for  it 
is  a  ground  you  scarcely  ever  deign  to  touch  upon.  But  surely 
it  is  a  distinct  subject  of  inquiry.  It  has  its  own  principles,  and  its 
own  probabilities.  You  must  pronounce  upon  the  testimony  of 
Moses  on  appropriate  evidence.  It  is  a  testimony  of  a  witness 
nearer  than  yourselves  to  the  events  in  question ;  and  if  it  be  a 
sound  testimony,  it  carries  along  with  it  the  testimony  of  a  Being 
who  was  something  more  than  an  actual  spectator  of  the  creation. 
He  was  both  spectator  and  agent.  And  yet  all  that  mighty  train 
of  evidence  which  goes  to  sustain  the  revealed  history  of  God's 
administrations  in  the  world,  is  by  you  overlooked  and  forgotten ; 
and  while  you  so  readily  lift  the  cry  against  the  unphilosophical 
encroachment  of  foreign  principles  into  your  department,  you 
make  no  conscience  of  elbowing  your  own  principles  into  a  field 
which  does  not  belong  to  them. 

"  But  it  is  high  time  to  confront  the  theory  of  our  geologist  with 
the  sacred  history — with  a  view  both  to  lay  down  the  points  of 
accordancy,  and  to  show  in  how  far  we  are  compelled  to  modify 
the  speculation,  or  to  disown  it  altogether. 

"  First,  then,  it  is  so  far  well  that  Cuvier  admits  the  very  last 
catastrophe  to  have  been  so  recent,  and  accomplished  too  like  all 
his  former  catastrophes,  by  the  agency  of  water.  The  only  mod- 
ification we  have  to  offer  here  is,  that  whereas  Cuvier  represents 
it  to  be  an  operation  of  so  violent  a  nature  as  to  agitate  and  dis- 
place everything  that  was  movable — we  guess,  from  the  history, 
that  an  olive  tree  was  still  standing,  and  not  lying  loosely  on 
the  ground,  with  part  of  its  foliage.  If  we  are  correct  in  our  as- 
sumption as  to  the  specific  gravity  of  the  olive  tree,  it  would,  if 
separated  from  the  soil,  have  been  borne  up  on  the  surface  of  the 
water — and  in  that  case  the  circumstance  of  a  leaf  being  recently 
plucked  or  torn  from  the  tree,  would  have  been  no  indication  what- 
ever of  the  waters  being  abated  from  off  the  earth. 

"  Again,  the  researches  of  M.  Cuvier  present  us  with  no  fact 
militating  against  the  recent  creation  of  the  human  species.  It 
has  been  said  to  be  the  subject  of  a  recent  discovery — but  at  the 
time  of  writing  this  volume,  M.  Cuvier  could  assert  that  no  hu- 
man remains  had  been  hitherto  discovered  among  the  extraneous 
fossils.  This  he  holds  to  be  a  decisive  proof,  that  man  did  not 
exist  in  those  countries  where  the  fossil  bones  of  other  animals  are 
to  be  found.  This  is  no  proof,  however,  that  he  did  not  exist  in 
some  other  quarters  of  the  globe  antecedent  to  the  last  or  any 
given  number  of  catastrophes.     He  may  have  been  confined  to 


188  cuvier's  theory  of  the  earth. 

some  narrow  regions  which  escaped  the  operation  of  the  catas- 
trophe, from  which  he  issued  out  to  repeople  the  new  formed 
land  ;  or,  the  fossil  remains  of  the  human  species,  may  exist  in 
the  bottom  of  the  present  ocean,  and  remain  concealed  from  ob- 
servation till  some  new  catastrophe  lay  them  open  to  the  inquirers 
of  a  future  era.  But  this  is  all  gratuitous,  and  must  give  way  to 
the  positive  information  of  authentic  history. 

"  There  is  one  very  precious  fruit  to  be  gathered  out  of  those 
investigations,  an  argument  for  the  exercise  of  a  creative  power, 
more  convincing  perhaps  than  any  that  can  be  drawn  from  the 
slender  resources  of  natural  theism.  If  it  be  true,  that  in  the 
oldest  of  the  strata,  no  animal  remains  are  to  be  met  with,  mark- 
ing out  an  epoch  anterior  to  the  existence  of  living  beings  in  the 
field  of  observation — if  it  be  true  that  all  the  genera  which  are 
found  in  the  first  of  the  peopled  strata  are  destroyed — if  it  be  true 
that  no  traces  of  our  present  genera  are  to  be  met  with  in  the  early 
epochs  of  the  globe, — how  came  the  present  races  of  animated 
nature  into  being?  It  is  not  enough  to  say,  that  like  man  they 
may  have  been  confined  to  narrower  regions,  and  escaped  the  op- 
eration of  the  former  catastrophes,  or  that  their  remains  may  be 
buried  under  the  present  ocean.  Enough  for  our  purpose,  that 
they  could  not  have  existed  from  all  eternity.  Enough  for  us  the 
fact,  that  each  catastrophe  has  the  chance  of  destroying,  or  does 
in  fact  destroy  a  certain  number  of  genera.  If  this  annihilating 
process  went  on  from  eternity,  the  work  of  annihilation  would 
long  ago  have  been  accomplished,  and  there  is  not  a  single  species 
of  living  creatures  that  could  have  survived  the  multiplicity  of 
chances  for  its  extinction  afforded  by  an  indefinite  number  of  ca- 
tastrophes. If  then  there  were  no  replacement  of  new  genera, 
the  face  of  the  world  would  at  this  moment  have  been  one  dreary 
and  unpeopled  solitude  ;  and  the  question  recurs,  how  did  this  re- 
placement come  to  be  effected  ?  The  doctrine  of  spontaneous 
generation  we  believe  to  be  generally  exploded ;  and  there  is  not 
a  known  instance  of  an  animal  being  brought  into  existence,  but 
by  means  of  a  previous  animal  of  the  same  species.  The  transi- 
tion of  the  genera  into  one  another  is  most  ably  and  conclusively 
contended  against  by  the  author  before  us,  who  proves  them  to  be 
separated  by  permanent  and  invincible  barriers.  Between  the 
one  principle  and  the  other  the  commencement  of  a  new  genera 
is  totally  inexplicable  on  any  of  the  known  powers  and  combina- 
tions of  matter,  and  we  are  carried  upwards  to  the  primary  link 
which  connects  the  existence  of  a  created  being  with  the  fiat  of 
the  Creator. 

"  But,  generally  speaking,  geologists  are  not  guilty  of  disown- 
ing the  act  of  creation.  It  is  in  theorizing  on  the  manner  of  the 
act,  (and  that  too  in  the  face  of  testimony  which  they  do  not  at- 
tempt to  dispose  of.)  that  they  make  the  most  glaring  deviation 
from  the  spirit  and  principles  of  the  inductive  philosophy.     We 


cuvier's  theory  op  the  earth.  189 

have  no  experience  in  the  formation  of  worlds.  Set  aside  reve- 
lation, and  we  cannot  say  whether  the  act  of  creation  is  an  instan- 
taneous act,  or  a  succession  of  acts  ;  and  no  man  can  tell  whether 
God  made  this  earth  and  these  heavens  in  a  moment  of  time,  or  in 
a  week,  or  in  a  thousand  years,  more  than  he  can  tell  whether  the 
men  of  Jupiter,  if  there  be  any  such,  live  ten  years  or  ten  centu- 
ries. Both  questions  lie  out  of  the  field  of  observation  ;  and  it  is 
delightful  to  think,  that  the  very  principle  which  constitutes  the 
main  strength  of  the  atheistical  argument,  goes  to  demolish  all 
those  presumptuous  speculations,  in  which  the  enemies  of  the 
Bible  attempt  to  do  away  the  authority  of  the  sacred  historian. 
'  The  universe,'  says  Hume,  '  is  a  singular  effect ;'  and  we  there- 
fore can  never  know  if  it  proceeded  from  the  hand  of  an  intelli- 
gent Creator.  But  if  the  Creator  takes  another  method  of  making 
us  know,  the  very  singularity  of  the  effect  is  the  reason  why  we 
should  be  silent  when  he  speaks  to  us  ;  and  why  we,  in  all  the  hu- 
mility of  conscious  ignorance,  should  yield  our  entire  submission 
to  the  information  he  lays  before  us.  Surely,  if  without  a  reve- 
lation, the  singularity  of  the  effect  leaves  us  ignorant  of  the  nature 
of  the  cause,  it  leaves  us  equally  ignorant  of  the  modus  operandi 
of  this  cause.  If  experience  furnish  nothing  to  enlighten  us  upon 
this  question,  '  Did  the  universe  come  from  the  hand  of  an  intelli- 
gent God  V  it  furnishes  as  little  to  enlighten  us  upon  the  question, 
'  Did  God  create  the  universe  in  an  instant,  or  did  he  do  it  in  seven 
days,  or  did  he  do  it  in  any  other  number  of  days  that  may  be  spe- 
cified V  These  are  points  which  natural  reason,  exercising  itself 
upon  natural  appearances,  does  not  qualify  us  to  know  ;  and  it 
were  well  if  a  maxim,  equally  applicable  to  philosophers  and  to 
children,  were  to  come  in  here  for  our  future  direction,  '  that  what 
we  do  not  know  we  should  be  content  to  learn  ;'  and  if  a  revela- 
tion, bearing  every  evidence  of  authenticity,  undertakes  the  office  of 
informing  us,  it  is  our  part  cheerfully  to  acquiesce,  and  obediently 
to  go  along  with  it. 

"  On  this  principle  we  refuse  to  concede  the  literal  history  of 
Moses,  or  to  abandon  it  to  the  fanciful  and  ever-varying  interpre- 
tations of  philosophers.  We  have  to  thank  the  respectable  editor 
of  this  work,  Mr.  Jameson,  for  his  becoming  deference  to  the  au- 
thority of  the  Jewish  legislator,  and  his  no  less  becoming  and 
manly  expression  of  it.  But  we  cannot  consent  to  the  stretching 
out  of  the  days,  spoken  of  in  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis,  into 
indefinite  periods  of  time.  We  fear  that  the  slower  revolution  of 
the  earth  round  her  axis,  is  too  gratuitous  to  make  the  admission  of 
it  at  all  consistent  with  the  just  rules  of  philosophizing ;  and  there 
is,  therefore,  no  other  alternative  left  to  us,  but  to  take  the  history 
just  as  it  stands.  We  leave  it  to  geologists  to  judge,  whether  our 
concluding  observations  allow  them  room  enough  for  bringing 
about  a  consistency  between  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis  and  their 
theories.     In  the  meantime,  we  assert  that  the  history  in  this 


190  cuvier's  theory  of  the  earth. 

chapter,  maintains  throughout  an  entire  consistency  with  itself;  a 
consistency  which  would  he  utterly  violated,  if  we  offered  to  alle- 
gorize the  days,  or  to  take  them  up  in  any  other  sense  than  that 
in  which  they  obviously  and  literally  present  themselves.  What 
shall  we  make  of  the  institution  of  the  Sabbath,  if  we  surrender 
the  Mosaic  history  of  the  creation  ?  Is  it  to  be  conceived,  that  the 
Jews  would  understand  the  description  of  Moses  in  any  other 
sense  than  in  the  plain  and  obvious  one  ?  Is  it  to  be  admitted, 
that  God  would  incorporate  a  falsehold  in  one  of  His  command- 
ments, or  at  least  prefer  a  reason  for  the  observance  of  it  which 
was  calculated  to  deceive,  and  had  all  the  effect  of  a  falsehood  ? 
We  cannot  but  resist  this  laxity  of  interpretation,  which  if  suffered 
in  one  chapter  of  the  Bible,  may  be  carried  to  all  of  them,  may 
unsettle  the  dearest  articles  of  our  faith,  and  throw  a  baleful  un- 
certainty over  the  condition  and  the  prospects  of  the  species. 

"  We  have  heard  it  preferred  as  an  impeachment  against' the 
consistency  of  the  Mosaic  account,  that  the  day  and  night  were 
made  to  succeed  each  other  antecedently  to  the  formation  of  the 
sun.  This  is  very  true ;  but  it  was  not  antecedent  to  the  forma- 
tion of  light ;  it  was  not  antecedent  to  the  division  of  the  light 
from  the  darkness;  it  may  not  have  been  antecedent  to  the  forma- 
tion of  luminous  matter :  and  though  all  this  matter  was  not  as- 
sembled into  one  body  till  the  fourth  day,  it  may  have  been  sepa- 
rated and  made  to  reside  in  so  much  greater  abundance  in  one 
quarter  of  the  heavens  than  in  the  other,  as  to  have  given  rise  to 
a  region  of  light  and  a  region  of  darkness.  Such  an  arrangement 
would,  with  the  revolution  of  the  earth's  axis,  give  rise  to  a  day 
and  a  night.  Enough  for  the  purpose  of  making  out  this  succes- 
sion, if  the  light  formed  on  the  first  day  was  unequally  dispersed 
over  the  surrounding  expanse,  though  it  was  not  till  this  light  was 
fixed  and  concentrated  in  one  mass,  that  the  sun  could  be  said  to 
rule  the  day. 

"  And  here  let  it  be  observed,  that  it  does  not  fall  upon  the  de- 
fenders of  Moses  to  bring  forward  positive  or  specific  proofs  for 
the  truth  of  any  system  reconcilable  with  his  history,  beyond  the 
historical  evidence  of  the  history  itself.  A  thousand  systems  may 
be  devised,  one  of  which  only  can  be  true,  but  each  of  which  may 
be  consistent  with  all  the  details  of  the  book  of  Genesis.  We 
cannot,  and  we  do  not  offer  any  one  of  these  systems  as  that 
which  is  to  be  positively  received,  but  we  offer  them  all  as  so  many 
ways  of  disposing  of  the  objections  ;  and  while  upon  us  lies  the  bare 
task  of  proposing  them,  upon  our  antagonists  lies  the  heavy  work  of 
overthrowing  them  all  before  they  can  set  aside  the  direct  testi- 
mony of  the  sacred  historian,  or  assert  that  his  account  of  the  crea- 
tion is  contradicted  by  known  appearances. 

"  We  crave  the  attention  of  our  readers  to  the  above  remark  ; 
and,  satisfied  that  the  more  they  think  of  it,  the  more  will  they  be 


cuviee's  theory  of  the  earth.  191 

impressed  with  its  justness,  we  spare  ourselves  the  task  of  bestow- 
ing upon  it  any  further  elucidation. 

"We  conclude  with  adverting  to  the  unanimity  of  geologists  in 
one  point, — the  far  superior  antiquity  of  this  globe  to  the  commonly 
received  date  of  it,  as  taken  from  the  writings  of  Moses.  What 
shall  we  make  of  this?  We  may  feel  a  security  as  to  those  points 
in  which  they  differ,  and,  confronting  them  with  one  another,  may 
remain  safe  and  untouched  between  them.  But  when  they  agree, 
this  security  fails.  There  is  no  neutralization  of  authority  among 
them  as  to  the  age  of  the  world ;  and  Cuvier,  with  his  catastrophes 
and  his  epochs,  leaves  the  popular  opinion  nearly  as  far  behind 
him,  as  they  who  trace  our  present  continent  upward  through  an 
indefinite  series  of  ancestors,  and  assign  many  millions  of  years  to 
the  existence  of  each  generation.  ^ 

"  Should  the  phenomena  compel  us  to  assign  a  greater  antiquity 
to  the  globe  than  to  that  work  of  days  detailed  in  the  book  of  Gen- 
esis, there  is  still  one  way  of  saving  the  credit  of  the  literal  history. 
The  first  creation  of  the  earth  and  the  heavens  may  have  formed 
no  part  of  that  work.  This  took  place  at  the  beginning,  and  is 
described  in  the  first  verse  of  Genesis.  It  is  not  said  when  this 
beginning  was.  We  know  the  general  impression  to  be,  that  it 
was  on  the  earlier  part  of  the  first  day,  and  that  the  first  act  of 
creation  formed  part  of  the  same  day's  work  with  the  formation 
of  light.  We  ask  our  readers  to  turn  to  that  chapter,  and  to  read 
the  first  five  verses  of  it.  Is  there  any  forcing  in  the  supposition, 
that  the  first  verse  describes  the  primary  act  of  creation,  and  leaves 
us  at  liberty  to  place  it  as  far  back  as  we  may :  that  the  first  half 
of  the  second  verse  describes  the  state  of  the  earth  (which  may 
already  have  existed  for  ages,  and  been  the  theatre  of  geological 
revolutions)  at  the  point  of  time  anterior  to  the  detailed  operations 
of  this  chapter  ;  and  that  the  motion  of  the  Spirit  of  God,  described 
in  the  second  clause  of  the  second  verse,  was  the  commencement 
of  these  operations  ?  In  this  case  the  creation  of  the  light  may 
have  been  the  great  and  leading  event  of  the  first  day ;  and  Mo- 
ses may  be  supposed  to  give  us  not  a  history  of  the  first  formation 
of  things,  but  of  the  formation  of  the  present  system  ;  and  as  we 
have  already  proved  the  necessity  of  direct  exercises  of  creative 
power  to  keep  up  the  generations  of  living  creatures  ;  so  Moses 
ma)%  for  anything  we  know,  be  giving  us  the  full  history  of  the 
last  great  interposition,  and  be  describing  the  successive  steps  by 
which  the  mischiefs  of  the  last  catastrophe  were  repaired. 

•'  I  take  a  friend  to  see  a  field  which  belongs  to  me,  and  I  give 
him  a  history  of  the  way  in  which  I  managed  it.  In  the  begin- 
ning I  inclosed  that  field.  It  was  then  in  a  completely  wild  and 
unbroken  state.  I  pared  it.  This  took  up  one  week.  I  removed 
the  great  stones  out  of  it.  This  took  up  another  week.  On  the 
third  week,  I  entered  the  plough  into  it :  and  thus,  by  describing 
the  operations  of  each  week,  I  may  lay  before  him  the  successive 


192  CUVIERS  THEORY  OF  THE  EARTH. 

steps  by  which  I  brought  my  field  into  cultivation.  It  does  not 
strike  me  that  there  is  any  violence  done  to  the  above  narrative,  by 
the  supposition  that  the  inclosure  of  the  field  was  a  distinct  and 
anterior  thing  to  the  first  week's  operation.  The  very  description 
of  its  state  after  it  was  inclosed,  is  an  interruption  to  the  narrative 
of  the  operations,  and  leaves  me  at  liberty  to  consider  the  work 
done  after  this  description  of  the  state  of  the  field  as  the  whole 
work  of  the  first  week.  The  inclosure  of  the  field  may  have 
taken  place  one  year,  or  even  twenty  years  before  the  more  de- 
tailed improvements  were  entered  upon. 

"  The  first  clause  of  the  second  verse  is  just  such  another  inter- 
ruption ;  and  it  is  remarkable,  that  there  is  no  similar  example  of 
it  in  describing  the  work  of  any  of  the  following  days,  so  as  to  di- 
vide one  part  of  the  day's  work  from  the  other.  It  is  true,  that,  in 
some  cases,  it  is  said  that  God  saw  it  to  be  good  ;  but  there  is  no 
imperfection  ascribed  to  anything,  as  it  resulted  immediately  from 
the  creating  power.  It  is  always  said  to  be  good  in  that  state  in 
which  it  came  directly  out  of  his  hand  ;  and  if  in  the  second  verse, 
it  is  said  of  the  earth,  not  that  it  was  good,  but  that  it  was  without 
form  and  void  ;  this  may  look  not  like  a  description  of  its  state 
immediately  after  it  came  out  of  the  hand  of  God,  but  of  its  state 
after  one  of  those  catastrophes  which  geologists  assign  to  it.  It 
is  further  remarkable,  that  there  is  a  unity  in  the  work  of  each  of 
the  five  days.  The  work  of  the  second  day  relates  only  to  the 
firmament ;  of  the  third  day,  to  the  separation  of  sea  and  land  ;  of 
the  fourth  day,  to  the  formation  of  the  celestial  bodies ;  of  the 
fifth,  to  the  creation  of  the  ssa ;  and  of  the  sixth,  to  that  of  land 
animals.  This  unity  of  work  would  be  violated  on  the  first  day, 
if  the  primary  act  of  creation  were  to  form  part  of  it ;  and  the 
uniformity  isbetter  kept  up  by  separating  the  primary  act  from 
all  the  succeeding  operations,  and  making  the  formation  and  divi- 
sion of  light,  the  great  and  only  work  of  the  first  day. 

"  The  same  observation  may  apply  to  all  the  celestial  bodies 
that  are  visible  to  this  world.  The  creation  of  the  heavens  may 
have  taken  place  as  far  antecedently  to  the  details  of  the  first 
chapter  of  Genesis,  as  the  creation  of  the  earth.  It  is  evident, 
however,  that  if  the  earth  had  been  at  some  former  period  the  fair 
residence  of  life,  she  had  now  become  void  and  formless  ;  and  if 
the  sun  and  moon  and  stars  at  some  former  period  had  given  light, 
that  light  had  been  extinguished.  It  is  not  our  part  to  assign  the 
cause  of  a  catastrophe  which  carried  so  extensive  a  destruction 
along  with  it;  but  he  were  a  bold  theorist  indeed,  who  could  as- 
sert, that,  in  the  wide  chambers  of  immensity,  no  such  cause  is  to 
be  found.  A  thousand  possibilities  may  be  devised,  each  of  which 
is  consistent  with  the  literal  history  of  Moses;  and  though  it  is  not 
incumbent  on  the  one  party  to  bring  forward  any  one  of  these 
possibilities  in  the  shape  of  a  positive  announcement,  each  of  them 


cuvier's  theory  of  the  earth.  193 

must  be  overthrown  by  the  other  before  that  history  can  be  aban- 
doned ;  and  it  will  be  found,  that  while  the  friends  of  the  Bible  are 
under  no  necessity  to  depart  from  the  sober  humility  of  the  induc- 
tive spirit,  the  charge  of  unphilosophical  temerity  lies  upon  its  op- 
ponents." 

25 


SPEECH 


DELIVERED 


IN  THE  GENERAL  ASSEMBLY  OF  1833, 


PROPOSED  MODIFICATION  OF  THE  LAW  OF  PATRONAGE. 


I  do  not  participate  in  the  confidence  of  those  who  seem  quite 
assured  that  the  abolition  of  patronage,  or  a  change  in  its  law,  is 
to  usher  in  for  us  some  great  and  speedy  regeneration,  or  to  be 
the  stepping-stone,  as  it  were,  to  a  blissful  millennium  in  the 
country  and  in  the  Church.  I  must  confess  myself  to  be  not  so 
sanguine  ;  nor  have  I  any  great  faith  in  the  efficacy  of  a  reno- 
vated constitution  for  bringing  onward  a  renovated  spirit,  a  reno- 
vated character,  either  among  our  ministers  or  among  our  people. 
It  seems  to  me  like  the  problem  of  the  best  construction  for  a 
house,  with  the  misfortune,  at  the  same  time,  of  having  nothing 
but  frail  materials  to  build  it  with  ;  in  which  case,  the  study  of 
the  fittest  proportions  for  durability  and  strength  will  be  of  little 
avail  to  us.  I  am  not  denying  that  there  is  an  optimism  of  form 
in  ordinary  architecture,  and  that  there  is  also  an  optimism  of 
form  in  the  architecture  of  an  ecclesiastico-political  fabric,  if  we 
knew  but  how  to  find  it — an  absolutely  best  and  most  perfect  frame- 
work, to  be  obtained  by  somehow  altering  the  present  relation  of 
its  parts,  and  fixing  on  other  adjustments  of  proportion  and  power, 
between  the  men  of  the  congregation,  and  the  men  of  the  session, 
and  the  men  of  the  presbytery,  and,  last  of  all,  the  man  whom  it 
is  now  proposed  to  remove  altogether  from  the  place  which  he  at 
present  occupies  on  the  apex  of  the  structure,  and  who  has  so  long 
held  the  initial,  and  a  great  deal  too  much  of  an  absolute,  voice  in 
the  appointment  of  churches.  By  these  changes,  power  will  be 
differently  partitioned,  and  the  constitution  forced  into  a  different 
sort  of  body-politic  from  before ;  but  it  ought  ever  to  be  kept  in 
mind,  that  we  have  nothing  after  all  but  poor  human  nature  to 
piece  and  to  build  it  with,  and  that  with  such  materials  we  in  vain 
expect  to  make  good  our  escape  from  corruption,  merely  by  pass- 
ing from  one  form  to  another.     It  is  for  this  reason  that,  however 


ON    A    PROPOSED    MODIFICATION,    ETC.  195 

much  I  may  sympathize  with  many  of  my  friends  in  my  wishes 
tor  a  pure  and  efficient  Church,  I  do  not  sympathize  with  them  in 
the  extravagance  of  their  hopes.  I  will  not  be  party  to  the  delu- 
sion that  our  Church  is  necessarily  to  become  more  Christian,  by 
the  constitution  of  it  becoming  more  popular ;  or  by  the  transfer- 
ence of  its  authority  from  the  hands  of  the  few  to  the  hands  of 
the  multitude.  I  do  not  see  how  the  one  is  an  unfailing  corollary 
to  the  other ;  or  how  you  are  to  get  quit  of  the  evils  incidental, 
I  fear,  to  all  sorts  of  human  patronage,  merely  by  multiplying  the 
number  of  human  patrons.  Multiplication,  I  ever  understood,  told 
only  on  the  amount  of  the  things  to  which  it  was  applied,  and  not 
upon  the  character  or  kind  of  them.  It  results  in  a  greater  num- 
ber of  apples,  but  has  no  power  to  change  them  into  apricots. 
Now,  my  fear  is,  that  if  utterly  powerless  for  the  transmutation  of 
fruit,  it  is  just  as  powerless  for  the  transmutation  of  humanity. 
Our  arithmetical  reformers,  who  look  to  this  mere  arithmetic  of 
theirs  for  the  revival  of  our  Church,  are  looking,  I  fear,  to  the 
wrong  quarter  for  our  coming  regeneration.  They  but  exchange 
one  human  confidence  for  another,  placing  it  on  a  broader  and 
more  extended  basis  than  before,  but  still  on  a  basis  of  earthliness. 
It  is  a  confidence  which  I  cannot  share  in  ;  nor  do  I  comprehend 
how  it  is  that,  with  minds  so  firmly,  so  undoubtedly  made  up,  they 
count  on  a  mere  enlargement  of  the  ecclesiastical  franchise,  as  the 
high-road  to  the  spiritual  enlargement  of  the  Church,  to  the 
increase  and  mighty  resurrection  of  its  vital  godliness.  They  are 
forgetting  all  history  and  all  observation.  They  are  not  looking 
even  to  the  present  state  of  those  numerous  dissenting  bodies 
which,  under  a  system  of  popular  election,  though  retaining  the 
form  of  sound  words,  have  become  spiritually  dead ;  or,  if  they 
still  own  any  fire  and  fervor  at  all,  it  is  but  the  fervor  of  earthly 
passions,  the  fire  of  fierce  and  unhallowed  politics.  Neither  are 
they  recollecting  those  numerous  Presbyterian  churches  in  Eng- 
land, which,  under  the  same  system,  have  even  cast  the  form  of 
sound  words  away  from  them,  and  lapsed  into  Scocinianism  ;  or 
the  Presbyterian  church  in  the  north  of  Ireland,  where,  with  that 
very  constitution  of  the  patronage  which  is  held  up  as  a  specific 
against  all  sorts  of  evil,  a  large  proportion  both  of  the  ministers 
and  congregations  lapsed  into  Arianism.  But  I  hold  it  a  far  more 
serious  inadvertency  than  this,  that  so  many  of  my  best  friends 
should  be  looking,  and  with  an  anticipation  quite  unwavering  and 
unclouded,  to  a  sort  of  latter-day  glory,  and  that  on  the  stepping- 
stone  of  a  mere  constitutional  reform,— a  transference  of  power 
from  the  patrons  to  the  people,  or  from  one  portion  of  our  de- 
praved human  nature  to  another.  Let  them  have  a  care,  in  all 
this  unquailing  confidence  of  theirs,  lest  they  should  become  un- 
mindful of  the  rock  whence  both  patrons  and  people  are  hewn, 
lest  they  should  be  forgetting  their  orthodoxy,  and  forgetting  their 
Bibles. 


19G  ON    A    PROPOSED    MODIFICATION 

This  does  not  supersede  the  question  of  the  best  constitution 
for  the  appointment  of  ministers  to  parishes,  while  it  may  help,  I 
do  think,  to  remove  an  obscuration  which  rests  upon  it.  The 
truth  is,  that  a  prevalent  error,  on  all  the  sides  of  the  controversy 
respecting  the  better  and  the  worse  systems  of  patronage,  is,  that 
we  are  perpetually  imagining  a  corrupt  exercise  of  the  power  in 
the  party  with  whom  our  antagonists  are  for  vesting  it ;  while  we 
overlook  the  equal  possibility  of  a  corrupt  exercise  in  the  party 
with  whom  we  are  for  vesting  it  ourselves.  The  enemies  of  the 
present  system  have  constantly  present  to  their  minds  the  idea  of 
a  reckless  and  unprincipled  patron,  a  case  which  has  been  too 
often  verified.  When  in  mitigation  of  the  evil,  it  is  alleged  that 
the  church  have  the  power — the  unlimited  power,  as  I  think — of 
rejecting  the  presentee,  this  is  met  by  the  conception  of  a  Presby- 
tery or  a  General  Assembly,  actuated  by  a  haughty  contempt  for 
the  popular  taste,  even  when  that  taste  is  in  unison  with  all  that 
is  most  characteristic  and  peculiar  in  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ : 
and  this  certainly  is  a  case  which  may  also  be  verified.  Well, 
then,  to  make  good  our  escape  from  these  polluted  quarters,  let 
us  suppose  this  power,  both  in  the  patron  and  in  the  church,  to  be 
done  away,  and  an  authority  paramount  to  either  vested  in  the 
suffrages  of  the  people, — is  it  now,  I  would  ask  from  every  man 
of  Christian  integrity,  or  even  of  common  observation, — is  it  now 
that  we  shall  have  found  a  secure  asylum  for  the  cause  of  truth 
and  piety,  in  a  region  of  ethereal  purity  of  incorrupt  and  heaven- 
born  principle  ?  I  speak  not  of  popular  ignorance  ;  but  I  speak 
of  the  wrong  and  the  wayward  influences  which  might,  so  easily, 
be  brought  to  bear  on  the  popular  will.  I  speak  of  their  extreme 
facility  to  the  solicitations  of  interested  applicants,  or  urgent  and 
interested  advisers  ;  and  of  the  wild-fire  rapidity  wherewith  a 
petition  borne  from  house  to  house,  and  prosecuted  with  address 
and  activity  through  a  parish,  might  obtain  a  majority  of  signa- 
tures. It  is  very  true  there  might  be,  and  often  is,  a  graceless 
patron,  and  it  is  just  as  true  that  there  might  be  a  graceless  presby- 
tery ;  but  I  would  ask  the  advocates  of  universal  suffrage,  if  there  be 
no  chance  or  possibility  whatever,  when  their  panacea  comes  to 
be  applied,  that  the  appointment  of  a  minister  may  fall  into  the 
hands  of  a  graceles  population  ?  But,  apart  from  their  want  of 
grace,  and  with  a  much  higher  respect  for  the  popular  understand- 
ing than  I  believe  is  generally  entertained,  I  do  apprehend  them 
exceedingly  liable  to  be  precipitated  or  betrayed  into  an  unfortu- 
nate appointment  through  downright  gullibility — insomuch  that 
the  so-called  popular  election  might  just  resolve  itself  into  the 
oligarchy  of  a  few,  or  perhaps  into  the  sovereign  and  directing 
will  of  but  one  individual.  A  people  occupied  with  labor  ;  not  in 
circumstances  for  a  leisurely,  and  comprehensive,  and  complete 
view  of  all  parts  of  a  subject;  withal  open  to  sudden  impulses,  and  to 
be  overborne  by  the  influence  of  candidates,  and  the  friends  of  can- 


OF    THE    LAW    OF    PATRONAGE.  197 

didates,  are  exceedingly  apt  to  make  a  wrong  outset,  and  irrecover- 
ably commit  themselves  to  an  unfortunate  choice.  I  should  not  an- 
ticipate a  good  series  of  appointments  by  laying  the  first  step  in  the 
choice  of  ministers  upon  the  congregation — the  way,  I  do  think,  to 
begin  with  anarchy,  and  to  end  in  virtual  patronage.  I  think  there 
is  good  reason  why,  in  every  instance,  there  should,  whether  express 
or  implied,  be  a  gregarious  consent;  but  in  no  instance,  I  apprehend, 
is  it  good  that  the  initial  movement  should  be  a  gregarious  one. 

The  question  then  is,  On  whom  should  the  burden  of  this  initial 
movement  be  laid?  or,  in  other  words,  Who  is  to  originate  the 
specific  proposition  of  a  minister  for  filling  up  the  vacancy  ?  Had 
we  to  begin  de  novo,  there  might  have  been  room  for  the  agita- 
tion of  various  plans  and  various  expedients.  But  I  must  confess 
that,  whenever  it  can  be  done  consistently  with  substantial  jus- 
tice to  the  people,  or  the  substantial  good  of  the  Church,  my  in- 
clination is  to  the  existing  state  of  things,  or  to  avail  ourselves  as 
much  as  possible  of  the  existing  machinery.  And  certain  it  is, 
that,  between  the  two  kinds  of  patronage — the  ostensible  patron- 
age of  the  present  system,  and  that  disguised  patronage  which  op- 
erates with  a  force  as  resistless,  though  unseen,  under  the  forms 
of  a  popular  election — I  would  never  once  think  of  comparing  the 
likelihood  of  a  good  result,  in  as  far  as  that  shall  depend  on  the 
sense  which  each  possessor  of  the  power  has  of  his  own  responsi- 
bility, before  the  eyes  of  a  vigilant  and  interested  public,  who  are 
anxiously  looking  on.  A  presentation  by  any  existing  patron  is  a 
distinct  and  noticeable  act,  clearly  referable  to  the  quarter  whence 
it  has  come,  and  laying  upon  him  who  has  issued  it  the  whole  bur- 
den of  the  disgrace  or  dissatisfaction  which  ensues,  on  the  event 
of  an  appointment,  either  obnoxious  at  the  time,  or  which  shall 
turn  out  ill  afterwards.  The  patron,  again,  who  lurks  unseen 
amid  the  recesses  of  a  parochial  community,  and  who,  through 
the  countless  ramifications  of  his  influence  there,  is  really  and  in 
effect  the  master  of  the  nomination,  is  shielded  from  the  reproach 
of  a  worthless  appointment,  under  the  semblance  of  that  free  con- 
stituency by  whose  voice  it  has  been  declared ;  which  constitu- 
ency, in  fact,  take  the  reproach  upon  themselves,  and  feel  it  to  be 
light  when  thus  divided  among  all,  with  many  countenances  to 
face  and  many  shoulders  to  bear  it.  It  is  thus,  I  believe,  that  the 
weight  of  the  public  mind  could  be  brought  to  bear  more  whole- 
somely, and  with  a  greater  force  of  concentration,  on  the  patron  as 
at  present  constituted,  than,  under  the  system  of  popular  election, 
it  could  be  brought  to  bear  either  on  the  oligarchy  or  head-man 
of  a  parish  ;  and  this  is  not  altogether  a  matter  of  reasoning  ;  for, 
in  so  far,  it  has  become  of  late,  and  that  most,  palpably,  a  matter  of 
experience.  Patrons  never  acted  more  under  the  control  of  opin- 
ion than  they  do  at  this  moment ;  and  it  is  to  be  hoped  that,  along 
with  this,  there  may  be  also  the  operation  of  a  higher  principle. 
But  the  question  now  respects  the  admission  of  the  people  to  a 


198  ON    A    PROPOSED    MODIFICATION 

larger  influence  than  before ;  and  it  is  an  important  aspect  of  the 
question,  that,  even  anterior  to  any  constitutional  changes,  this  in- 
fluence, we  venture  to  say,  has  been  prodigiously  increased  ;  for 
never,  for  a  century  back,  has  the  known  disposition  of  the  parish 
told  more  powerfully  than  at  the  present  moment  on  the  determina- 
tion of  the  patron.  The  public  will  has  of  late  arisen  to  the  might 
and  the  mastery  of  a  giant  force  amongst  us  ;  and  it  were  well  if  a 
wisdom,  powerful  to  direct,  should  appear  to  guide  that  uplifted 
hand  which  is  so  powerful  to  destoy.  The  misfortune,  and  often  the 
fatal  mischief,  is,  that,  in  the  waywardness  of  these  new-found  en- 
ergies, the  favorite  exercise  is  to  demolish,  rather  than  to  animate 
or  control — not  to  try,  in  the  first  instance,  what  is  best  to  be  done 
with  our  institutions  as  they  are,  with  the  things  standing  in  their 
places,  but  to  begin  with  the  work  of  remodelling  society  by  an 
instant  and  universal  displacement.  In  this  disposition  to  attack 
the  machinery  itself,  rather  than  attempt  to  regulate  and  rectify 
its  movements,  we  are  not  to  wonder  if  the  cry  should  be  to  abol- 
ish patronage,  rather  than  impress  a  wholesome  direction  on  it. 
This  has  manifested  itself  in  other  and  greater  questions  than  that 
of  patronage,  as  by  those  who,  instead  of  seeking  but  the  amelio- 
ration of  our  establishment,  are  now  meditating  their  deadly  aim 
at  its  existence— thereby  exemplifying  the  general  tendency,  on 
every  sudden  enlargement  to  the  force  and  freedom  of  the  popu- 
lar will,  the  tendency  to  lay  hands  on  all  the  ready-made  instru- 
ments of  usefulness,  not  for  the  purpose  of  wielding  them  to  a 
greater  public  good  or  service  than  before,  but  for  the  purpose, 
with  the  wanton  destructiveness  of  children  loosened  from  re- 
straint, of  breaking  them  in  pieces.  Better  a  public  astir  and 
awake  to  every  great  interest,  than  in  a  dead  calm  or  state  of 
lethargy,  did  it  but  amount  to  such  an  impulse  on  the  vessel  as  might 
bear  it  safely  and  prosperously  onward.  I  should  rejoice  in  the 
breeze ;  but  I  stand  in  dread  of  the  hurricane. 

Let  me  here  remark,  that  though  the  First  Book  of  Discipline 
vests  the  initiative  in  the  people,  this  never  seems  to  have  been 
regularly  acted  on,  or  at  least  for  a  very  brief  period  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  Scottish  Church.  The  truth  is,  that  it  had  only  the 
vacancies  of  eighteen  years  in  which  it  could  be  exemplified  ;  for 
by  this  time  the  First  Book  of  Discipline,  which  never  was  ratified 
by  Parliament,  was  matured  into  the  Second  Book  of  Discipline, 
when,  in  1578,  the  initiative  was  differently  ordered.  Never,  I 
believe,  in  modern  Christendom,  did  a  church  effectuate  a  greater 
transformation  on  the  character  and  state  of  any  people,  than  did 
the  Church  of  Scotland,  in  two  distinct  periods,  which  might  well 
be  termed  the  two  gulden  ages  of  our  Church,  on  the  people  of 
Scotland  ;  and  that,  on  each  occasion,  in  the  space  of  about  half  a 
generation — I  mean  from  1(538  and  1GJ)0,  during  which  periods,  it  is 
to  be  observed,  although  the  power  of  consenting  or  objecting  lay 
with  the  people,  the  initiative  was  vested  in  another  and  a  distinct 


OF    THE    LAW    OF    PATRONAGE.  199 

quarter,  first  in  the  session,  and  secondly,  in  the  session  and  heri- 
tors. Could  it  be  clearly  made  out,  or  did  I  confidently  anticipate, 
that  any  Christian  good  would  be  effected  by  the  transference  of 
this  initiative  from  its  present  into  other  hands,  I  should  the  more 
readily  give  into  it ;  but  having  no  such  anticipation,  I  should  pre- 
fer the  improvement  that  was  brought  about  in  such  a  way  as  to 
yield  the  greatest  amount  of  vital  and  substantial  benefit,  with 
the  least  amount  of  disturbance  from  external  or  constitutional 
changes.  I  am  aware  of  the  theoretical  partiality  which  many 
of  my  friends  have  for  the  whole  system  of  our  ministerial  ap- 
pointments being  out  and  out  ecclesiastical,  which  it  would  hi  if, 
as  by  the  act  of  Assembly  1649,  the  nomination  were  vested  in 
the  session,  and  the  power  of  objecting  in  the  people,  and  the  final 
judgment,  where  these  two  parties  were  at  variance,  in  the  Pres- 
bytery. Even  the  act  of  Parliament,  1G90,  by  which  the  nomi- 
nation is  vested,  not  in  the  elders  alone,  but  in  the  elders  and  her- 
itors, might  be  accommodated  to  this  theory  by  the  single  quali- 
fication of  heritors  being  communicants.  Whether  the  same 
qualification  applied  to  our  existing  patrons,  that  they  should  be 
in  communion  with  the  church,  and  so  within  our  own  ecclesi- 
astical pale,  and  under  our  own  ecclesiastical  control, — whether 
this  would  reconcile  them  more  to  the  present  system  of  patron- 
age, I  do  not  know.  But  however  much  we  may  differ  respect- 
ing the  initiative,  I  not  only  feel  inclined  to  go  as  far,  but  would 
even  go  farther  than  the  advocates,  either  for  the  act  of  Parlia- 
ment 1G90,  or  for  the  act  of  Assembly  10 19,  respecting  the  safe- 
guard or  the  check.  The  great  complaint  of  our  more  ancient 
Assemblies,  the  great  burden  of  Scottish  indignation,  the  practi- 
cal grievance  which,  of  all  others,  has  hitherto  been  felt  most  in- 
tolerable and  galling  to  the  hearts  of  a  free  and  religious  people, 
is  the  violent  intrusion  of  ministers  upon  parishes.  An  effectual 
provision  against  this  enormity,  this  unfeeling  outrage,  which  in 
the  exercise  of  a  reckless  and  unprincipled  patronage  has  so  often 
been  perpetrated  in  our  beloved  land,  an  outrage,  by  the  appoint- 
ment of  an  ungodly  pastor,  on  the  rights  of  conscience  and  the 
religious  sensibilities  of  a  sorely  aggrieved  people, — a  provision 
against  so  deep  and  so  wide,  a  moral  injury  as  this  to  the  families 
of  a  parish,  I  should  feel  the  most  valuable  of  all  the  legislative 
expedients  or  devices  which  could  be  proposed  on  the  present  oc- 
casion, and  would  welcome  it  all  the  more  cordially  if  we  had  not 
to  go  in  quest  of  it  without  the  limits  of  our  actual  occlesiastical 
constitution  ;  or,  in  other  words,  if,  instead  of  enacting  a  new 
law,  we  had  but  to  declare  our  interpretation  of  an  old  one.  Now 
the  law  of  calls  places  such  a  facility  in  our  hands  ;  and  as  I  feel 
I  must  not  take  up  the  time  of  the  Assembly,  let  me  state  at  once, 
and  without  farther  preamble,  my  own  preference  as  to  the  best 
way  of  restoring  significancy  and  effect  to  this  now  antiquated, 
but  still  venerable  form, — and  this  is  by  holding  the  call  a  solid 


200  ON    A    PROPOSED    MODIFICATION 

one  which  lies,  not  in  the  expressed  consent  of  the  few,  and  these 
often  the  mere  driblet  of  a  parish  :  but  larger  than  this,  which 
lies  in  the  virtual  or  implied  consent  of  the  majority,  and  to  be 
gathered  from  their  non-resistance  or  their  silence.  In  other  words, 
I  would  have  it  that  the  majority  of  dissentient  voices  should  lay 
a  veto  on  every  presentation. 

In  this  power  of  a  negative  on  the  part  of  the  people  there  is 
nothing  new  in  the  constitution  or  practice  of  the  Church  of  Scot- 
land. It  is  the  great  barrier,  in  fact,  set  up  by  the  wisdom  of  our 
forefathers  against  the  intrusion  of  ministers  into  parishes.  It 
could  make  no  appearance  in  the  First  Book  of  Discipline,  15G0, 
where  it  was  provided  that  the  people  should  have  the  initiative, 
or  that  the  ministers  should  be  appointed,  not  with  their  consent, 
but  by  their  election.  But  after  the  probation  of  eighteen  years, 
we  have  the  Second  Book  of  Discipline  1578,  where  the  election 
is  made  to  proceed  by  the  judgment  of  the  eldership  and  with 
the  consent  of  the  congregation,  and  care  is  expressed  that  "  no 
person  be  intrusit  contrar  to  the  will  of  the  congregation,  or 
without  the  voice  of  the  eldership."  This  interdict  by  the  people 
is  farther  recognized  and  ratified  in  the  act  of  Assembly  1649, 
and  of  Parliament  1690.  It  is,  in  fact,  the  appropriate,  the  coun- 
terpart remedy  against  the  evil  of  intrusion.  If  we  hear  little  of 
the  application  or  actual  exercise  of  this  remedy  during  the  times 
it  was  in  force,  it  was  because  of  a  great  excellence,  even  that 
pacific  property  which  belongs  to  it  of  acting  by  a  preventive 
operation.  The  initial  step  was  so  taken  by  the  one  party  as  to 
anticipate  the  gainsayers  in  the  other.  The  goodness  of  the  first 
appointment  was,  in  the  vast  majority  of  instances,  so  unquestion- 
able as  to  pass  unquestioned  ;  and  so  this  provision,  by  its  reflex 
influence,  did  then  what  it  would  do  still, — it  put  an  end  to  the 
trade  of  agitation.  Those  village  demagogues,  the  spokesmen 
and  oracles  of  a  parish,  whose  voice  is  lain  for  wrar,  that  in  the 
heat  and  hubbub  of  a  parochial  effervescence,  they  might  stir  up 
the  element  they  love  to  breathe  in,  disappointed  of  their  favorite 
game  by  a  nomination  which  compelled  the  general  homage,  had 
to  sheathe  their  swords  for  lack  of  argument.  It  was  like  the 
beautiful  operation  of  those  balancing  and  antagonist  forces  in 
nature  which  acj  by  pressure  and  not  by  collision,  and,  by  means 
of  an  energy  that  is  mighty,  but  noiseless,  maintain  the  quiescence 
and  stability  of  our  physical  system.  And  it  is  well  when  the  ac- 
tion and  reaction  of  these  moral  forces  can  be  brought  to  bear 
with  the  same  conservative  effect  on  each  other  in  the  world  of 
mind,  whether  it  be  in  the  great  world  of  the  state  or  in  the  little 
world  of  a  parish.  And  the  truth,  the  historical  truth,  in  spite  of 
all  the  disturbance  and  distemper  which  are  associated  with  the 
movements  of  the  populace,  is,  that  turbulence  and  disorder  were 
then  only  let  loose  upon  the  land,  when  this  check  of  the  popular 
will  was  removed  from  the  place  it  had  in  our  ecclesiastical  con- 


OP    THE    LAW    OF    PATRONAGE.  201 

stitution,  and  where  it  was  inserted  so  skilfully  by  the  wisdom  of 
our  fathers  ;  that,  instead  of  acting  by  conflict,  or  as  a  conflicting 
element,  it  served  as  an  equipoise.  It  was  when  a  high-handed 
patronage  reigned  uncontrolled  and  without  a  rival,  that  discord 
and  dissent  multiplied  in  our  parishes.  The  seasons  immediately 
succeeding  to  1649,  and  1690,  when  the  power  of  negation  was 
lodged  with  the  people,  not,  however,  as  a  force  in  exercise,  but 
as  a  force  in  reserve, — these  were  the  days  of  our  church's 
greatest  prosperity  and  glory,  the  seasons  both  of  peace  and  of 
righteousness.  Persecution  put  an  end  to  the  one  period,  and  un- 
restricted patronage  put  an  end  to  the  other. 

But  the  last  element  in  the  composition  of  this  affair,  and  to 
which  I  have  scarcely  yet  adverted,  is  the  power  of  the  church. 
For  let  the  ancient  privilege  of  a  negation  be  again  given  to  the, 
people,  and  there  will  come  to  be  a  tripartite  operation  ere  a  min- 
ister shall  be  fully  admitted  into  a  parish — not  a  business,  however, 
unmanageably  complex  on  that  account,  else  whence  the  rapid, 
and  smooth,  and  practicable  working  of  the  British  legislature? 
And  here  the  question  at  once  occurs,  whether  shall  the  objection 
taken  to  the  presentee  by  the  majority  of  the  people  be  submitted 
for  review  to  the  Presbytery,  as  by  the  acts  of  1649  and  1690,  or 
shall  it  be  held  conclusive  so  as  without  judgment  by  us  to  set 
aside  the  presentation  ?  My  preference  is  for  the  latter,  and  I 
think  that  I  can  allege  this  valid  reason  for  it.  The  people  may 
not  be  able  to  state  their  objection  save  in  a  very  general  way,  and 
far  less  be  able  to  plead  and  to  vindicate  it  at  the  bar  of  a  Presby- 
tery, and  yet  the  objection  be  a  most  substantial  one  notwithstand- 
ing, and  such  as  ought,  both  in  all  Christian  reason  and  Christian 
expediency,  to  set  aside  the  presentation.  I  will  not  speak  of  the 
moral  barrier  that  is  created  to  the  usefulness  of  a  minister  by  the 
mere  general  dislike  of  a  people — for  this,  though  strong  at  the 
outset,  may,  literally  a  prejudice  or  a  groundless  judgment  before- 
hand, give  way  to  the  experience  of  his  worth  and  the  kindness 
of  his  intercourse  amongst  them.  But  there  is  another  dislike 
than  to  the  person  of  a  minister, — a  dislike  to  his  preaching, 
which  may  not  be  groundless,  even  though  the  people  be  whollv 
incapable  of  themselves  arguing  or  justifying  the  grounds  of  it- 
just  as  one  may  have  a  perfectly  good  understanding  of  words,and 
yet,  when  put  to  his  definitions,  not  be  at  all  able  to  explain  the 
meaning  of  them.  This  holds  pre-eminently  of  the  Gospel  of 
Jesus  Christ,  manifesting  its  own  truth  to  the  consciences  of  men, 
who  yet  would  be  utterly  nonplussed  and  at  fault,  did  you  ask 
them  to  give  an  account  or  reason  for  their  convictions.  Such  is 
the  adaptation  of  Scripture  to  the  state  of  humanity — an  adapta- 
tion which  thousands  might  feel,  though  not  one  in  the  whole  mul- 
titude should  be  able  to  analyze  it.  When  under  the  visitations  of 
moral  earnestness,  when  once  brought  to  entertain  the  question  of 
his  interest  with  God,  and  conscience  tells  of  his  yet  uncancelled 

26 


202  ON    A    PROPOSED    MODIFICATION 

guilt,  and  his  yet  unprovided  eternity — even  the  most  illiterate  of 
a  parish  might,  when  thus  awakened,  not  only  feel  most  strongly, 
but  perceive  most  intelligently  and  soundly,  the  adjustment  which 
obtains  between  the  overtures  of  the  New  Testament  and  the 
necessities  of  his  own  nature.  And  yet,  with  a  conviction  thus 
based  on  the  doctrines  of  Scripture  and  the  depositions  of  his  own 
consciousness,  he,  while  fully  competent  to  discern  the  truth,  may 
be  as  incompetent  as  a  child  to  dispute  or  to  argument  it,  and 
when  required  to  give  the  reasons  of  his  objection  to  a  minister 
at  the  bar  of  his  Presbytery,  all  the  poor  man  can  say  for  himself 
might  be,  that  he  does  not  preach  the  Gospel,  or  that  in  his  ser- 
mon there  is  no  food  for  his  soul.  It  were  denying  the  adaptation 
of  Christianity  to  human  nature,  to  deny  that  this  is  a  case  which 
may  be  often  and  legitimately  realized.  With  a  perfect  indepen- 
dence on  the  conceits  and  the  follies,  and  the  wayward  extrava- 
gance or  humors  of  the  populace,  I  have,  nevertheless,  the  pro- 
foundest  respect  for  all  those  manifestations  of  the  popular  feeling, 
which  are  founded  on  an  accordancy  between  the  felt  state  of  hu- 
man nature  and  the  subject  matter  of  the  Gospel ;  and  more  espe- 
cially, when  their  demand  is  for  those  truths  which  are  of  chief 
prominency  in  the  Bible,  and  let  us  add,  in  the  Confessions  and 
Catechisms  of  our  Church — and  their  complaint,  their  sense  of 
destitution,  is  from  the  want  of  a  like  prominency  in  sermons. 
But  in  very  proportion  to  my  sympathy  and  my  depth  of  venera- 
tion for  the  Christian  appetency  of  such  cottage  patriots,  would 
be  the  painfulness  I  should  feel  when  the  cross-questionings  of  a 
court  of  review  were  brought  to  bear  upon  them  ;  and  the  men, 
bamboozled  and  bereft  of  utterance  by  the  reasonings  which  they 
could  not  redargue,  or,  perhaps,  the  ridicule  which  they  could  not 
withstand,  were  left  to  the  untold  agony  of  their  own  hearts — be- 
cause within  the  Establishment  which  they  loved,  they  could  not 
find,  in  its  Sabbath  ministrations  or  week-day  services,  the  doc- 
trine which  was  dear  to  them.  To  overbear  such  men  is  the  high- 
way to  put  an  extinguisher  on  the  Christianity  of  our  land, — the 
Christianity  of  our  ploughmen,  our  artisans,  our  men  of  handicraft 
and  of  hard  labor  ;  yet  not  the  Christianity  theirs  of  deceitful  im- 
agination, or  of  implicit  deference  to  authority,  but  the  Christi- 
anity of  deep,  I  will  add,  of  rational  belief,  firmly  and  profoundly 
seated  in  the  principles  of  our  moral  nature,  and  nobly  accredited 
by  the  virtues  of  our  well-conditioned  peasantry.  In  the  olden 
time  of  Presbytery — that  time  of  scriptural  Christianity  in  our 
pulpits,  and  of  psalmody  in  all  our  cottages — these  men  grew  and 
multiplied  in  the  land  ;  and  though  derided  in  the  heartless  litera- 
ture, and  discountenanced  or  disowned  in  the  heartless  politics  of 
other  days,  it  is  their  remnant  which  acts  as  a  preserving  salt 
among  our  people,  and  which  constitutes  the  real  strength  and 
glory  of  the  Scottish  nation. 

I  beg  to  apologize  for  having  occupied  so  much  of  the  time  of 


OF    THE    LAW    OF    PATRONAGE.  203 

the  Assembly,  and  would  only  now  say,  in  conclusion,  that,  while 
on  the  whole  I  am  inclined  to  prefer  to  any  other  change  or  abo- 
lition I  have  heard  of,  the  continuance  of  the  existing  patronage, 
with  a  veto  by  the  majority  of  the  people,  I  would  desire  to  be 
understood,  that  in  all  I  have  expressed,  I  have  done  it  with  the 
feeling  of  much  diffidence  ;  and  if  there  be  a  firm  certainty  in  my 
mind  at  all,  on  any  single  point  connected  with  this  argument,  it 
is  only  of  one  thing, — that  no  good  result  will  come,  evren  from 
the  likeliest  of  our  mere  outward  and  constitutional  arrangements, 
apart  from  the  personal  Christianity,  be  they  patrons,  or  ministers, 
or  people,  of  those  among  whose  hands  the  working  of  this  new- 
formed  mechanism  is  to  be  shared.      The  frame-work  of  our 
Church  may  be  better  moulded,  and  its  parts  put  into  goodlier 
adjustment  than  before ;  but,  like  the  dry  bones  in  the  vision  of 
Ezekiel,  even  when  reassembled  into  the  perfect  skeleton,  and  in- 
vested, by  a  covering  of  flesh  and  skin,  with  the  perfect  semblance 
and  beauty  of  a  man — so  our  Church,  even  when  moulded  into 
legal  and  external  perfection  by  human  hands,  may  have  all  the 
inertness  of  a  statue,  and  with  the  monumental  coldness  of  death 
upon  it,  till  the  Spirit  of  God  shall  blow  into  it  that  it  may  live.   I 
confess  that,  on  the  one  hand,  I  sit  more  loose  to  the  constitutional 
question,  when  I  think  that,  from  the  hands  of  Christianized  pa- 
trons, heaven  can  make  the  rich  blessing  of  an  efficient  ministry  to 
descend  upon  us ;  and  that,  on  the  other,  I  cannot  partake  in  the 
vaulting  confidence  of  many  of  my  brethren,  when  I  think  that, 
in  the  hands  of  an  unchristian  people,  a  church  may  wither  into 
spiritual  destitution,  bereft  of  all  her  graces  and  all  her  godliness. 
We  occupy  a  singular  position  between  the  nobles  and  the  popu- 
lation of  the  land ;  and  I  will  not  say  but  that  the  Christian  inde- 
pendence of  the  Church  is  in  just  as  great  danger  from  the  one 
quarter  as  from  the  other.  I  have  the  satisfaction  of  thinking  that, 
even  in  the  days  of  most  arbitrary  and  unrestricted  patronage,  I 
ever  contended  for  the  Church's  independence  ;  and  that,  how- 
ever unquestionable  the  right  of  the  legal  patron  who  signed  the 
presentation,  it  was  our  unscathed  prerogative  to  sit  in  judgment 
on  the  qualifications  of  the  presentee — not  in  the  limited  sense 
either  of  moral  or  literary  qualifications,  but  on  all  qualifications, 
in  the  most  general  meaning  that  could  be  affixed  to  the  category, 
on  the  quails  in  counterpart  to  the  talis,  on  the  qualis  minister  for 
the  tails  populus,  or  if  such  was  the  minister  who  ought  to  be  ap- 
pointed  to  such  a  parish,  for  the  Christian  good  of  its  families. 
The   due  administration  of  such  a  power  might  have  disarmed 
almost  any  system  of  patronage  of  its  mischiefs  ;  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  there  is  no  system,  whether  of  patronage  or  of  popular  elec- 
tion, that  will  ever  work  prosperously  without  the  pure  and  the 
righteous  exercise  of  it.  And,  therefore,  whatever  changes  the  svs- 
tem  of  our  patronage  is  to  undergo,  I  trust  the  Church  will  never 
let  down  the  function  which  belongs  to  her ;  and  as  on  questions 


204  ON    A    PROPOSED    MODIFICATION,    ETC. 

of  principle  she  has  often  withstood  the  presentations  that  were 
signed  by  the  patron,  so,  on  the  same  questions,  that  she  will  con- 
tinue to  withstand  presentations,  however  signed  by  the  patron, 
and  however  countersigned  by  the  people — great  in  her  virtuous 
opposition  to  the  princes  and  the  potentates  of  the  earth ;  and 
greater  still,  if  ever  called  to  such  a  combat — greater  still  in  her 
virtuous  independence,  whether  of  the  frowns  or  the  hosannas  of 
the  multitude. — I  conclude  with  proposing  the  following  motion  : 
— "  That  the  General  Assembly  having  maturely  weighed  and 
considered  the  various  overtures  now  before  them,  do  find  and  de- 
clare, that  it  is,  and  has  been  ever  since  the  Reformation,  a  fixed 
principle  in  the  law  of  this  Church,  that  no  minister  shall  be  intru- 
ded into  any  pastoral  charge,  contrary  to  the  will  of  the  congre- 
gation ;  and  considering  that  doubts  and  misapprehensions  have 
existed  on  this  important  subject,  whereby  the  just  and  salutary 
operation  of  the  said  principle  has  been  impeded,  and  in  many 
cases  defeated,  The  General  Assembly  further  declare  it  to  be 
their  opinion,  that  the  dissent  of  a  majority  of  the  male  heads  of 
families  resident  within  the  parish,  being  members  of  the  congre- 
gation, and  in  communion  with  the  Church,  at  least  two  years 
previous  to  the  day  of  moderation,  whether  such  dissent  shall  be 
expressed  with  or  without  the  assignment  of  reasons,  ought  to  be 
of  conclusive  effect  in  setting  aside  the  presentee  (under  the  pat- 
ron's nomination),  save  and  except  where  it  is  clearly  established, 
by  the  patron,  presentee,  or  any  of  the  minority,  that  the  said  dis- 
sent is  founded  in  corrupt  and  malicious  combination,  or  not  truly 
founded  on  any  objection  personal  to  the  presentee  in  regard  to 
his  ministerial  gifts  or  qualifications,  either  in  general,  or  with  ref- 
erence to  that  particular  parish  ;  and  in  order  that  this  declara- 
tion may  be  carried  into  full  effect,  that  a  committee  shall  be  ap- 
pointed to  prepare  the  best  measure  for  carrying  it  into  effect 
accordingly,  and  to  report  to  the  next  General  Assembly  " 


A 

FEW  THOUGHTS 


ABOLITION  OF    COLONIAL    SLAVERY,* 


It  must  be  still  fresh  in  the  remembrance  of  many,  that  the 
efforts  of  the  British  public,  for  the  abolition  of  the  Slave  Trade, 
created  the  liveliest  alarm  in  the  minds  of  those  who  were  con- 
nected, either  by  trade  or  by  property,  with  the  West  Indies. 
And  now  that  the  measure  has  been  carried  into  effect,  and  the 
trial  has  been  made  for  years,  of  finding  the  requisite  labor  with- 
out the  importation  of  negroes  from  abroad,  it  is  palpable  to  all, 
that  the  forebodings  which  were  then  awakened  have  not  been 
realized.  That  the  West  Indian  interest  has  had  to  sustain  reverses 
and  difficulties  under  the  new  system  of  things,  is  undoubted,  but 
these  were  not  at  all  connected  with  the  abolition  of  the  Slave 
Trade.  It  is  even  the  opinion  of  many  proprietors,  that  an  im- 
pulse of  prosperity  was  given  to  our  whole  collonial  system  in 
the  west,  by  a  measure  which  was  regarded  beforehand  with  all  the 
terror  of  an  approaching  death-blow  ;  and  that  it  in  fact  warded 
off  the*  very  extermination  of  which  it  was  proclaimed  to  be  the 
harbinger.  At  all  events,  the  dread  imagination  has  turned  out 
to  be  a  bugbear.  Both  Liverpool  and  Glasgow  have  survived  an 
event  which,  in  the  belief  of  many,  was  to  annihilate  them;  and 
both  are  alike  the  living  evidences  of  a  native  and  inherent  vigor 
in  commerce,  that  places  it  far  above  the  need  of  such  wretched 
auxiliaries  as  either  fraud  or  violence  to  sustain  it. 

*  The  following  paper  was  prepared  upwards  of  fourteen  years  ago,  as  a  preface  to 
one  of  Mr.  Clarkson's  pamphlets,  which  was  to  have  been  put  in  circulation  around  the 
neighborhood  of  Glasgow,  by  the  Abolition  Society  that  is  instituted  there.  But  the 
process  which  I  have  ventured  to  recommend,  does  not  altogether  meet  the  views  of 
mat  y  Abolitionists;  and  neither  have  I  found  that  it  meets,  at  every  point,  the  views  of 
the  West  India  planters.  Nevertheless,  there  is  at  least  a  theoretical  beauty  in  the  pro- 
cess, which  might,  perhaps,  gain  for  it  some  degree  of  attention  ;  and  as  to  the  experi- 
mental soundness  of  it,  we  have  the  testimony  of  Humboldt,  who,  in  the  course  of  his 
travels  through  the  Spanish  part  of  South  America,  saw  whole  villages  of  emancipated 
negroes,  who  had  achieved  their  liberation  in  the  way  that  is  here  delineated. 

It  should  be  understood,  that  our  numerical  details  are  given  only  for  the  purpose  of 
illustration. 


206  THOUGHTS  ON  SLAVERY. 

Another  abolition  is  now  in  contemplation, — an  abolition  not  of 
the  Slave  Trade,  but  of  slavery  itself;  and  the  perfect  safety  of 
the  first,  seems  to  have  had  no  effect  in  softening  the  dread  or  the 
disquietude  that  is  felt  because  of  the  second.  There  is  a  recent 
pamphlet  by  Mr.  Clarkson,  that  is  well  fitted  to  meet,  and  per- 
haps, to  remove  the  apprehensions  of  the  West  India  proprietors. 
It  is  entitled,  "  Thoughts  on  the  Necessity  of  Improving  the  con- 
dition of  the  Slaves  in  the  British  Colonies,  with  a  view  to  their 
ultimate  Emancipation ;  and  on  the  practicability,  the  safety,  and 
the  advantage  of  the  latter  measure."  He  first  addresses  himself 
to  the  question  of  right,  and  occupies  sixteen  pages  with  what 
might  be  called  the  juridical  part  of  his  argument ;  which,  per- 
haps, is  neither  so  useful  nor  so  convincing  as  are  the  statements 
that  follow,  and  throughout  which  he  addresses  himself  to  the  in- 
terest  of  the  slave-owners.  By  these  statements  he  seems  clearly 
to  prove  the  success  wherewith  large  and  even  sudden  emancipa- 
tions have  been  already  accomplished,  besides  the  happy  result  of 
certain  partial  experiments  which  have  been  made  within  the  lim- 
its of  the  British  colonies.  The  comparison,  in  point  of  cheap- 
ness, between  free  and  forced  labor,  is  particularly  important :  and, 
on  the  whole,  it  is  fondly  hoped,  that  the  perusal  of  this  little 
work,  by  the  most  eminent  laborer  in  the  cause,  will  (serve  both 
to  enlighten  its  friends,  and  to  disarm  the  antipathy  of  its  adver- 
saries. It  is  worthy  of  especial  notice,  that  he  who  is  best  fitted 
to  expound  the  views  of  the  abolitionists,  nowhere  supposes  that 
the  emancipation  is  to  be  immediate,  or  that  the  work  is  to  be 
done  with  a  rash  and  rapid  hand,  but  that  in  every  step  of  the 
preparation  for  this  great  event,  regard  should  be  had  to  the  inter- 
est of  the  proprietor,  as  well  as  to  the  comfort  and  principles  of 
the  slaves. 

It  is  much  to  be  regretted,  that  the  abolitionists  and  the  plan- 
ters have  hitherto  stood  at  such  an  impracticable  distance  from 
each  other  ;  and  more  especially  that  a  whole  class  of  men,  com- 
prising in  it  many  humane  and  accomplished  individuals,  should 
have  had  such  an  indiscriminate  stigma  affixed  to  them,  by  the  more 
intemperate  advocates  of  a  good  cause.  There  is  a  sacredness  in 
property,  which  a  British  Legislature,  in  that  calm  and  equitable 
spirit  by  which  it  is  so  honorably  characterized,  will  ever  hold  in 
reverence  ;  and  everything  ought  to  be  done  consistently  with 
the  great  object  of  a  full  and  final  emancipation,  to  tranquillize 
the  natural  fears  of  the  slave-holders,  and,  it  may  be  added,  to 
meet  and  to  satisfy  their  natural  appetite  for  justice.  On  the  part 
of  the  abolitionists,  there  is  a  frequent  appeal  to  the  abstract  and 
original  principles  of  the  question.  But,  on  the  part  of  the  pro- 
prietors, it  may  be  asked,  who  ought  to  be  at  the  expense  of  re- 
forming the  mischief  that  has  arisen  from  the  violation  of  these 
principles? — whether  the  traders  who  have  hitherto  acted  under 
the  sanction  and  the  shelter  of  existing  laws,  or  the  Government 


THOUGHTS  ON  SLAVERV.  207 

that  framed  these  laws  ? — whether  the  party  that  have  been  lured 
into  a  commerce  which  they  found  to  be  tolerated  and  protected 
by  the  state,  or  the  party  that,  by  this  very  toleration,  may  be  said 
to  have  given  their  promise  and  their  authority  in  its  favor  ? — 
whether  the  children  who  have  been  misled,  or  the  parent  who 
has  misled  them  1 — whether,  in  a  word,  the  men  who  have  been 
singled  out  for  the  execration  of  the  public,  or  that  same  public, 
under  whose  observation,  and  by  whose  connivance,  the  property 
that  they  would  now  seize  upon  has  been  legalized,  and  its  pres- 
ent possessors  have  made  their  sacrifices  of  time,  and  labor,  and 
money,  to  obtain  it.  It  were  a  noble  achievement,  this  conver- 
sion of  slaves  into  freemen  ;  and  therefore  the  more  important  for 
its  ultimate  success,  that,  in  every  step  of  its  prosecution,  there 
should  be  an  even-handed  justice  to  all  the  parties  concerned. 
More  especially,  would  it  serve  to  accredit  the  philanthropy  that 
is  now  so  widely  and  so  warmly  embarked  upon  this  undertaking, 
did  they  who  advocate  its  designs  also  bear  their  part  in  the  ex- 
penses of  them  ;  and  it  would  do  much  to  allay  the  fermentation 
that  now  is  among  the  West  India  planters,  could  they  have  any 
satisfying  demonstration  from  Parliament,  that,  however  intent  on 
the  emancipation  of  their  slaves,  it  should  be  so  devised  and  car- 
ried into  effect  as  not  to  infringe  on  the  present  worth  of  their 
patrimony. 

The  following  suggestion  is  the  more  valuable  that  it  hath  come 
from  a  gentleman,  who  is  himself  a  very  extensive  West  India 
proprietor ;  and  that  while  it  holds  out  a  complete  remuneration 
to  the  owners  of  slaves,  promises  the  conveyance  of  them  into  a 
state  of  freedom  with  a  speed  and  a  safety  that  ought  to  satisfy 
the  most  sanguine  abolitionist. 

The  scheme  may  be  expressed  generally  thus: — Let  Govern- 
ment purchase  from  the  West  India  proprietors,  at  a  fair  valua- 
tion, one  day's  labor  in  the  week  of  all  the  slaves  in  their  posses- 
sion. This  can  be  done  by  paying  one-sixth  of  their  whole  price  ; 
after  which,  each  slave  hath  at  least  one  day  in  every  week,  in 
which  he  is  a  free  laborer,  and  might  earn  for  himself.  He  of 
course  becomes  the  absolute  owner  of  what  he  thus  earns  ;  and 
let  it  be  competent  for  him,  when  it  has  accumulated  to  a  suffi- 
cient sum,  therewith  to  purchase,  at  a  certain  regulated  price, 
another  free  day  in  the  week.  Having  thus  two  days  to  himself, 
he  is  able  to  accelerate  his  future  purchases  of  freedom  ;  and  thus, 
as  the  fruit  of  his  own  industry  and  care,  might  he,  in  a  very  few 
years,  work  out  his  complete  emancipation. 

Or  the  scheme  may  be  made  still  more  intelligible,  when  illus- 
trated by  numbers.  Let  the  whole  slave  population  of  the  British 
colonies  be  800,000.  At  £50  each,  which  is  a  high  estimate  when 
thus  made  to  include  all  ages,  the  sixth  part  of  their  whole  value 
to  the  owners  is  short  of  seven  millions.  By  funding  this  sum  to 
the  credit  of  the  proprietors,  one  day's  free  labor  to  each  slave 


208  THOUGHTS  ON  SLAVERY. 

might  become  the  universal  law  of  the  British  West  Indies.  The 
registry  of  slaves  gives  every  facility  for  assigning  the  shares  of 
this  stock  to  the  respective  proprietors,  whether  they  be  princi- 
pals or  mortgagees  upon  the  estates.  And  when  once  this  arrange- 
ment is  made,  a  patent  and  a  practicable  way  is  opened  for  the  full 
deliverance  of  the  negroes  from  a  state  of  slavery.  Whole  gangs 
are  not  unfrequently  hired  out  at  3s.  4d.  currency  a-head  per  day, 
and  their  maintenance:  and  there  can  be  no  doubt,  from  the  dif- 
ference between  free  and  forced  labor,  that  an  ordinary  working 
slave  could  earn  for  himself,  on  the  day  that  is  his  own,  at  least 
3s.  4d.  sterling.*  This  sum  weekly  is  more  than  £8  a  year,  or 
about  a  sixteenth  part,  perhaps,  of  his  whole  value  ;  and  for  which 
last  sum,  therefore,  he  could,  in  less  than  three  years  purchase  an- 
other free  day  each  week.  With  the  earnings  of  two  free  days, 
he  could,  in  another  three  years,  purchase  two  more,  and  then,  in 
a  year  and  a  half,  could  work  out  the  freedom  of  his  whole  week, 
or  his  entire  emancipation.  At  all  events,  in  seven  or  eight  years, 
each  individual,  if  in  health  and  full  strength,  could  work  out  his 
own  deliverance  from  slavery  ;  after  which  he  might  proceed  to 
do  the  same  for  others  of  his  family,  if  he  has  one.  The  freedom 
of  a  woman,  when  once  accomplished  in  this  way,  would,  by  the 
existing  law,  secure  the  freedom  of  all  the  children  that  are  after- 
wards born  by  her  ;  and  this  would  be  of  prime  importance  in 
extending  the  work  of  emancipation.  The  process  is  easily  ap- 
prehended;  and  seems  to  meet  all  the  formidable  difficulties,  and 
to  combine  all  the  most  desirable  advantages  both  to  the  slave  and 
to  his  proprietor. 

For,  first,  in  reference  to  the  slave,  his  emancipation  cannot  take 
effect  till  after  he  has  been  fully  prepared  for  it,  by  the  habits  ac- 
quired during  a  long  course  of  industry.  These  habits  form  the 
best  guarantee  of  his  fitness  for  the  new  state  of  freedom  on  which 
he  is  to  enter.  And  there  is  nothing  sudden  or  desultory  in  this 
transition.  He  at  first  is  made  to  taste  of  liberty  by  having  one 
day  of  it  in  the  week ;  and  this  liberty  can  only  be  enlarged  by 
the  good  use  that  he  makes  of  that  which  he  has  gotten.  He  at 
length  reaches  the  condition  of  entire  freedom,  by  a  process,  the 
very  description  of  which  is,  in  itself,  the  best  proof  of  his  being 
a  right  subject  for  freedom,  as  well  as  the  best  preparation  for  it. 
No  artificial  education  that  can  possibly  be  devised,  would  answer 
so  well  as  this  wholesome  stimulus  to  exertion  and  good  manage- 
ment. 

But,  secondly,  the  slave  who  idled  his  free  time,  whether  in 
sleep  or  in  amusement,  would  of  course  make  no  further  progress 
towards  a  state  of  freedom.  He  would  live  and  die  a  slave  be- 
cause he  chose  to  do  so.  They  from  whose  liberty  most  danger 
is  apprehended,  because  of  their  idle  or  disorderly  habits,  would, 

*  It  must  be  remarked,  however,  that  free  negroes  are  hired  at  rates  which  are  ex- 
ceedingly various  in  the  different  colonies. 


THOUGHTS  ON  SLAVERY.  209 

by  the  very  tenure  on  which  it  was  held  out  to  them,  be  debarred 
forever  from  the  possession  of  it.  And  yet  there  can  be  little 
doubt,  that  slavery \vould  rapidly  decay  and  ultimately  disappear 
under  such  an  economy.  There  would  be  a  piece-meal  emanci- 
pation going  forward — a  gradual  substitution  of  free  for  forced 
labor — an  increase  of  regular  and  family  habits — the  growth  of  a 
better  constituted  population — an  experience,  on  the  part  of 
planters,  of  the  superior  advantage  of  free  labor,  that  would  at 
length  incline  them  to  forward  the  cause  of  emancipation,  and  es- 
tablish such  a  common  interest  between  the  two  extreme  classes 
in  the  colonies,  as  might  ward  off  that  threatened  explosion  which 
has  so  long  hung  over  them. 

And,  thirdly,  were  such  a  process  established,  there  would  be 
an  effectual  protection  to  the  colonies  from  the  disquiet  and  the 
disturbance  of  any  other  proposals  for  emancipation.  For  were 
this  object  once  set  a-going  in  this  one  way,  no  other  way  could 
or  ought  to  be  entertained  for  a  moment.  The  slaves  must,  under 
the  system  that  is  now  recommended,  be  made  conclusively  to 
understand,  that  it  is  by  their  own  persevering  labor  and  frugality, 
and  by  this  alone,  that  they  are  to  make  sure  and  speedy  progress 
towards  the  consummation  to  which  they  are  so  fondly  looking 
forward.  Otherwise,  the  method  is  paralyzed.  The  industrious 
slave,  who  might  otherwise  embark  with  ardor  upon  this  attempt, 
and  persevere  in  it  with  unwearied  constancy,  and  be  cheered  on- 
wards by  the  brightening  of  his  hopes,  as  he  advanced  nearer, 
every  week,  to  the  fulfilment  of  them, — he  would  be  quite  dis- 
tracted and  disheartened  did  he  know  of  other  methods  in  agita- 
tion, by  which  the  idlest  of  the  gang  might  come  to  emancipation 
as  well  as  he,  and  all  his  labors  have  been  rendered  useless.  It 
were  a  sore  provocation  to  him,  that  he  had  wrought  so  fatigue- 
ingly,  and  paid  so  faithfully  for  a  deliverance,  which  at  length 
others  had  come  at  without  any  such  expense,  either  of  money  or 
of  enjoyment.  So  that  if  this  particular  method  shall  be  adopted, 
it  seems  quite  indispensable  that  all  other  methods,  but  those  of 
purchase,  shall  be  finally  closed.  And  it  does  seem  no  small  re- 
commendation of  the  plan  in  question,  that  while  compensation 
is  thereby  rendered  to  the  planter  for  each  of  his  slaves  who  is 
liberated,  it  is  done  by  a  process  which  at  once  trains  them  for  a 
state  of  freedom,  and  confines  them  to  the  only  safe  and  slow  way 
by  which  they  become  prepared  for  the  full  enjoyment  of  it. 

And  again,  in  reference  to  the  planters,  it  is  thought  by  many, 
of  such  a  proposal,  that  it  is  peculiarly  accommodated  to  their  in- 
terest. For,  not  to  speak  of  the  instantaneous  satisfaction  and  calm 
which  it  is  fitted  to  impart  to  the  now  restless  and  ruffled  mind  of 
the  slave  population — not  to  speak  of  its  efficacy  to  rivet  the  most 
energetic  and  intelligent  amongst  them  to  a  pacific  career  of  dili- 
gence and  good  conduct,  instead  of  unsettling  and  throwing  them 
into  dangerous  excitement — not  to  speak  of  the  union  of  inter- 

27 


210  THOUGHTS  ON  SLAVERY. 

est  and  policy  that  is  thus  established  between  the  master  and  the 
more  influential  part  of  his  laborers,  who -will  now  feel  their  inter- 
est to  be  at  one  with  the  peace  and  good  order  of  the  colony,  and 
to  be  separate  from  that  of  those  who  seek,  by  violence  and 
insurrection,  the  object  which  they  are  pursuing  by  a  steady 
course  of  industry  and  accumulation, — over  and  above  these  ad- 
vantages, it  is  thought  that,  in  this  method,  there  is  a  peculiar 
adaptation  to  the  present  exigencies  of  the  trade.  For,  by  it  the 
planter  can  disengage  immediately  one  sixth  of  his  capital  in 
slaves,  and  have  the  full  command  of  it.  Should  he  choose  to 
limit  his  West  India  business,  he  might  transfer  this  capital  to 
other  uses.  Should  he  choose  to  keep  it  up  to  its  present  amount, 
or  even  to  extend  it,  he  can  have  the  free  labor  that  will  be 
thrown  by  this  measure  upon  the  market.  As  the  process  ad- 
vances, and  the  slaves  begin  to  purchase  additional  days  of  free- 
dom for  themselves,  there  will  be  the  successive  withdrawment 
of  more  capital — thereby  enabling  him  to  come  gradually  out  of 
the  business  altogether,  or  to  perpetuate,  and  even  enlarge  it,  ac- 
cording to  circumstances.  In  this  way,  the  market  for  colonial 
produce  may  be  lightened  ;  or  if  there  be  encouragement,  it  may 
be  more  abundantly  supplied.  A  very  likely  diversion  for  a  great 
part  of  this  free  labor,  would  be  to  ordinary  agriculture,  for  rais- 
ing the  means  of  subsistence;  and  this,  of  itself,  might  prove  a 
wholesome  diversion,  to  relieve  and  disembarrass  an  overdone 
trade.  It  is  seldom  that  a  merchant  can  extricate  himself  from 
the  difficulties  of  such  a  trade,  by  withdrawing  from  it  part  of 
his  capital,  and  obtaining  an  equivalent  for  the  part  thus  with- 
drawn. There  is  generally  a  sinking,  a  surrender,  a  positive  an- 
nihilation, and  loss  of  capital,  on  these  occasions.  It  is  hoped 
that  the  public  who  are  intent  on  the  abolition  of  slavery,  will  not, 
through  Parliament,  which  is  the  great  constitutional  organ  for 
the  utterance  of  their  voice, — it  is  hoped  that  they  will  not  refuse 
this  advantage  to  the  West  India  proprietors.  And,  on  the  other 
hand,  it  were  equally  desirable,  that  the  other  party,  the  proprie- 
tors, should  cease  their  opposition  to  a  measure  thus  accompanied 
with  what  appears,  on  every  view  that  is  taken  of  it,  to  be  a  very 
fair  and  beneficial  compensation. 

But  lastly,  in  reference  to  the  abolitionists,  what  a  field  would 
be  opened,  by  this  measure,  for  the  enterprises  of  their  philan- 
thropy !  What  a  coincidence  would  be  brought  about  between 
the  interests  of  the  planters,  and  their  own  benevolent  designs  for 
the  amelioration  of  the  negroes  !  With  what  a  mighty  argument 
might  they  go  forth  among  these  neglected  outcasts,  when  urging 
them  to  peace  and  contentment,  and  the  calm  prosecution  of  their 
ulterior  objects,  the  fulfilment  of  which  will  at  once  enrich  their 
masters,  and  emancipate  themselves  !  Upon  such  a  footing,  the 
Missionaries  of  the  good  cause  might  be  admitted,  without  suspi- 
cion, and  with  perfect  safety,  among  all  the  plantations  ;  and  there 


THOUGHTS    O.V    SLAVERY.  211 

is  not  one  of  them  who  could  possibly  inflict  such  nn  outrage  on 
all  right  and  humane  policy,  as  to  encourage  the  expectations  of 
freedom  in  any  other  way  than  the  one  which  the  Legislature 
had  provided,  and  for  which  it  had  granted  so  liberal  and  advan- 
tageous an  outset.  Every  lesson  which  they  urged,  would  be  on 
the  side  of  thrift,  and  sobriety,  and  regular  labor;  and,  enforced, 
as  they  could  not  fail  to  be,  by  the  rational  hope  of  a  great  earthly 
reward,  there  would  be  a  delightful  harmony  between  these  and 
the  higher  lessons  of  Christianity.  We  should  soon  see  the  charm 
of  a  Moravian  transformation  on  the  habits  of  many ;  and  it  may 
be  confidently  predicted,  of  those  who  labored  most  sedulously 
on  their  own  day  for  the  sum  that  was  to  purchase  an  immunity 
to  themselves,  that  they  would  be  the  most  faithful,  through  the 
remaining  days,  in  the  service  of  their  proprietors.  European 
friends  would  not  be  wanting,  to  aid  and  to  foster  their  generous 
aspirings  after  liberty  ;  and  never  was  a  safer  and  a  quieter  path 
opened  for  the  attainment  of  this  great  blessing,  than  the  one  that 
is  here  recommended — not  by  a  series  of  exasperations,  and 
struggles,  and  horrid  barbarities,  but  by  those  slow  and  pacific 
exertions  which  should  bring  them  onward  to  liberty  in  success- 
ive footsteps,  and  thoroughly  prepare  them  for  the  use  and  enjoy- 
ment of  it,  by  the  time  that  they  had  been  conducted  to  its  verge. 
It  were  indeed  a  mild,  yet  noble  triumph  of  legislation,  if  such 
an  experiment,  on  such  a  theatre,  could,  without  the  infringement 
either  of  peace  or  of  justice,  be  guided  onward  to  its  successful 
termination — if  it  so  re-united  all  interests,  as  to  cement  and  to 
satisfy  all  parties  ;  and  it  was  at  length  found,  that  the  security  of 
the  higher  classes  was  best  consulted  by  the  gradual  extension  of 
light  and  liberty,  and  the  benefit  of  equal  laws,  to  the  very  lowest 
in  the  scale  of  society. 

There  are  subordinate  details  which  cannot  be  entered  upon, 
and  which  yet,  if  unexplained,  might  leave  a  doubt  or  difficulty  in 
the  mind.  It  is  thought,  however,  that,  in  practice,  there  is  no 
insuperable,  even  no  formidable  barrier  against  the  accomplish- 
ment of  this  scheme.  The  interest  of  mortgagees  could  be  as 
effectually  guarded  as  it  is  now,  under  the  proposed  arrangement. ' 
And  as  to  the  alleged  danger  of  holiday  riot  and  disturbance 
among  the  negroes,  on  their  free  day,  it  is  not  necessary  that  it 
should  be  on  the  same  day  of  the  week  to  all,  either  on  a  whole 
island,  or  even  throughout  a  whole  plantation.  At  the  first,  there 
need  be  no  more  liberty  than  one  sixth  of  the  negro  population  at 
a  time,  upon  any  estate  ;  many  of  whom  would  most  certainly 
be  at  hard,  though  voluntary  work,  and  all  of  whom  would  be 
under  the  restraint  of  those  laws  which  enforce  decency  and 
good  conduct  among  all  classes. 


The  Essays  which  follow  were  contributed  in  the  form  of  Prefaces  to  so 
many  of  the  works  of  old  Christian  authors,  republished  by  Mr.  Collins  of 
Glasgow.     They  would  not  have  appeared  in  the  present  publication,  had  if 


212  INTRODUCTORY    NOTE. 

not  been,  that,  besides  being  recommend atory  of  the  Treatises  in  question,  each 
is  taken  up  with  a  distinct  theological  topic,  on  which  we  have  attempted  to 
bestow  an  independent  treatment  of  our  own. 

We  esteem  it  the  happy  symptom  of  a  wholesome  revival  in  the  taste  and 
spirit  of  the  age,  that  of  late  "there  should  have  been  such  an  increased  demand, 
for  the  best  of  those  practical  writings  on  Christianity,  which  made  their  ap- 
perance  in  the  last  half  of  the  17th  and  first  half  of  the  18th  century.  We 
have  heard  that  Mr.  Coxlixs's  Series  of  "  Select  Christian  Authors,"  which 
commenced  about  fifteen  years  ago,  gave  a  powerful  impulse  to  this  revival. 
Certain  it  is.  that  his  enterprise  has  been  successfully  followed  up  by  numerous 
imitations;  and  it  is  our  delightful  confidence,  that,  both  throughout  Britain  and 
America,  the  effect  has  been,  to  leaven  the  public  mind  anew,  with  the  sub- 
stantial doctrine,  and  no  less  substantial  Christian  ethics,  that  flourished  at  that 
period — when  so  many  men  of  profoundest  piety,  were  also  men  of  profoundest 
acquaintance,  both  with  the  lessons  of  the  divine  word  and  with  the 'experi- 
mental lessons  of  human  nature. 

We  cannot  look  back  to  that  time,  which,  in  spite  of  all  the  ridicule  that 
has  been  awakened  by  its  occasional  excesses,  was  in  truth  the  Augustan  age 
of  Christianity  in  England,  without  being  reminded  of  the  saying  that  "  they 
were  giants  in  these  days" — a  character  which  they  have  rightfully  earned, 
not  more  bv  their  prodigious  industry  than  by  their  colossal  powers,  on  the 
strength  of  both  which  together,  they  achieved  such  an  amount  of  active  work, 
along  with  such  a  magnitude  and  number  of  massive  publications.  We  know 
not  which  to  admire  most — the  labor  of  their  incessant  ministrations,  both  in 
the  pulpit  and  among  families  ;  or  the  labor  of  their  prolific  and  profound  author- 
ship. It  is  the  combination  of  the  two  which  raises  our  admiration  into  won- 
der ;  and  the  feeling  is  greatly  enhanced,  when  we  contemplate  the  solid  worth 
and  quality  of  the  compositions  which  they  have  given  to  the  world. 

To  estimate  them  intellectually,  account  should  be  taken,  both  of  their  great 
discernment  into  the  meaning  of  Scripture,  and  their  deep  insight  into  the 
mysteries  of  the  heart.  It  was  the  conjunction  of  these  two  which  so  peculiarly 
qualified  them  "  to  give  a  word  in  season" — to  point  out  the  marvellous  corre- 
spondence which  obtains,  between  the  sayings  of  the  Bible  and  the  countless 
varieties  of  life  and  character  in  the  world  ;  or  between  the  characters  graven 
by  the  fingers  of  the  Almighty  on  the  tablet  of  an  outward  revelation,  and  the 
characters  graven  by  the  same  finger  on  the  inward  tablet  of  our  own  felt  and 
familiar  nature.  In  the  language  of  the  schools,  they  were  skilful  to  adapt  the 
objective  to  the  subjective  ;  or  in  the  more  simple  and  emphatic  language  of 
Inspiration,  to  "  manifest  the  truth  of  God  to  the  consciences  of  men." 

But  it  is  in  estimating  them  spiritually,  that  we  come  best  to  understand, 
wherein  it  was  that  their  great  strength  lay.  What  forms  the  true  secret  of 
their  effectiveness  is  the  unction,  or  moral  earnestness,  by  which  their  writings 
are  so  manifestly  pervaded.  The  good  things  which  proceeded  from  them, 
came  from  the  good  treasure  of  hearts  quickened  and  renewed  by  the  Holy 
Spirit.  Besides  that  often  they  were  men  of  first-rate  talent,  they  generally 
were  men  of  prayer ;  and  this  brought  down  an  inspiring  vigor  on  the  exercises 
of  the  closet,  as  well  as  on  the  duties  of  their  public  and  daily  walk.  It  is 
thus  that  a  devoted  personal  Christianity  appears  in  almost  every  paragraph 
of  the  volumes  which  they  have  left  behind  them — those  weighty  products 
of  great  power  and  groat  piety — having  in  them  a  fragrancy  and  a  force  which 
now  are  seldom  exemplified  ;  and  in  virtue  of  which,  they  have  not  only  been 
instrumental  for  the  conversion  of  thousands  in  the  days  that  are  past,  but  still 
continue  to  shed  a  blessing  of  the  highest  order  on  the  churches  and  families  of 
our  present  generation. 


INTRODUCTORY  ESSAY 


THE    IMITATION    OF    CHRIST; 

IN    THREE    BOOKS. 

BY  THOMAS  A  KEMPIS. 


We  have  sometimes  heard  the  strenuous  argumentation  of  the 
author  of  the  following  Treatise  in  behalf  of  holiness,  excepted 
against,  on  the  ground  that  it  did  not  recognize  sufficiently  the 
doctrine  of  justification  by  faith.  There  is,  in  many  instances,  an 
over-sensitive  alarm  on  this  topic,  which  makes  the  writer  fearful 
of  recommending  virtue,  and  the  private  disciple  as  fearful  of  em- 
barking on  the  career  of  it — a  sort  of  jealousy  lest  the  honors  and 
importance  of  Christ's  righteousness  should  be  invaded,  by  any 
importance  being  given  to  the  personal  righteousness  of  the  be- 
liever :  as  if  the  one  could  not  be  maintained  as  the  alone  valid 
plea  on  which  the  sinner  could  lay  claim  to  an  inheritance  in  hea- 
ven, and  at  the  same  time  the  other  be  urged  as  his  indispensable 
preparation  for  its  exercises  and  its  joys. 

It  is  the  .partiality  with  which  the  mind  fastens  upon  one  article 
of  truth,  and  will  scarcely  admit  the  others  to  so  much  as  a  hear- 
ing— it  is  the  intentness  of  its  almost  exclusive  regards  on  some 
separate  portion  of  the  divine  testimony,  and  its  shrinking  avoid- 
ance of  all  the  distinct  and  additional  portions — it  is,  in  particular, 
its  fondness  for  the  orthodoxy  of  what  relates  to  a  sinner's  accep- 
tance, carried  to  such  a  degree  of  favoritism,  as  to  withdraw  its 
attention  altogether  from  what  relates  to  a  sinner's  sanctifica- 
tion, — it  is  this  which,  on  the  pretence  of  magnifying  a  most  essen- 
tial doctrine,  has,  in  fact,  diffused  a  mist  over  the  whole  field  of 
revelation  ;  and  which,  like  a  mist  in  nature,  not  only  shrouds  the 
general  landscape  from  all  observation,  but  also  bedims,  while  it 
adds  to  the  apparent  size  of  the  few  objects  that  continue  visible. 
It  is  the  same  light  which  reveals  the  whole,  that  will  render  these 
last  more  brightly  discernible  than  before ;  and  whether  they  be 
the  prominences  of  spiritual  truth,  or  of  visible  materialism,  they 
are  sure  to  be  seen  most  distinctly  in  that  element  of  purity  and 


:-* 


214  A    KEMPIS'    IMITATION    OF    CHRIST. 

clearness,  through  the  medium  of  which  the  spectator  is  able  to 
recognize  even  the  smaller  features  and  the  fainter  lineaments  that 
lie  on  the  ground  of  contemplation. 

It  is  true,  that  the  same  darkening  process  which  buries  what 
is  remote  in  utter  concealment,  will,  at  least,  sully  and  somewhat 
distort  the  nearer  perspective  that  is  before  us.  But  how  much 
more  certain  is  it,  that  if  such  be  the  grossness  of  the  atmosphere 
as  to  make  impalpable  the  trees,  and  the  houses,  and  the  hillocks 
of  our  immediate  vicinity — then  will  the  distant  spires,  and  moun- 
tains, and  villages,  lie  buried  in  still  deeper  and  more  hopeless  ob- 
scurity£  And  so  it  is  with  revealed  truth ;  the  light  of  which  is 
spread  over  a  wide  and  capacious  arena,  reaching  afar  from  the 
character  of  man  upon  earth  to  the  counsels  of  God  in  heaven. 
When  Christ  told  Nicodemus  what  change  must  take  place  upon 
the  earthly  subject,  ere  it  could  be  prepared  for  the  glories  and 
felicities  of  the  upper  sanctuary,  he  was  resisted  in  this  announce- 
ment by  the  incredulity  of  his  auditor.  Upon  this  he  came  forth 
?I  fcgjfc.  "^U1  the  remonstrance  :  "  If  I  have  told  you  earthly  things,  and 
^tfi  believe  not,  how  shall  ye  believe,  if  I  tell  you  of  heavenly 
Sfings  ?"  And  then  he  proceeds  to  tell  of  heavenly  things, — of 
ire  transactions  that  had  taken  place  in  the  celestial  judicatory 
above,  and  which  behooved  to  take  place  ere  the  sinner  could  ob- 
tain a  rightful  entrance  into  the  territory  of  the  blessed  and  the 
unfallen ;  of  the  love  that  God  bare  to  the  world  ;  of  the  mission 
thereto  on  which  He  delegated  His  only  and  well-beloved  Son  ; 
of  the  design  of  this  embassy,  and  the  way  in  which  it  subserved 
the  great  object  of  recovering  sinners  from  their  state  of  condem- 
nation. These  are  proceedings  which  may  properly  be  referred 
to  the  seat  of  the  divine  government,  and  to  the  principles  which 
operate  and  have  ascendency  there.  The  doctrine  of  regenera- 
tion is  fulfilled  or  verified  upon  the  human  spirit,  that  is  intimately 
and  consciously  present  with  us.  The  doctrine  of  the  atonement, 
or  the  manner  in  which  the  reconciliation  of  the  guilty  is  brought 
into  adjustment  with  the  holiness  of  God,  and  with  what  He  re- 
quires for  maintaining  the  character  and  the  dignity  of  His  jurispru- 
dence, is  fulfilled  or  verified  upon  the  divine  Spirit,  whose  thoughts 
and  whose  ways  are  inscrutable  to  man — He  not  having  ascended 
up  into  heaven.  And  the  expostulation  amounts 'to  this: — If  a 
man  believe  not  in  the  doctrine  of  regeneration,  how  can  he  be- 
lieve in  the  doctrine  of  the  atonement  ?  If  he  consent  not  to  the 
one  he  gives  no  real  credit  to  the  other.  He  may  fancy  it,  or  feipn 
it  out  to  his  imagination,  bat  he  has  no  faith  in  it. 

The  Bible  makes  known  to  us  both  man's  depravity,  and  God's 
displeasure  against  him  :  and  if  with  the  eye  of  our  mind  wre  see 
not  the  one  truth,  which  lies  immediately  at  hand,  neither  with 
the  eye  of  our  mind  can  we  see  the  other  truth,  which  lies  in 
fathomless  obscurity,  away  from  us,  among  the  recesses  of  that 
mysterious  Spirit,  who  is  eternal  and  unsearchable.     But  the  Bible 


A    K13MPIS      IMITATION    OF    CHRIST.  215 

also  makes  known   to  us,  both   the  renewing  process  by  which 
man's  depravity  is  clone  away,  and   the   reconciling  process,  by 
which  God's  displeasure  against  him  is  averted.     If  we  believe 
not  the  former,  neither  do  we  believe  the  latter.     If  to  our  intel- 
lectual view,  there  be  a  darkness  over  the   terrestrial  operation, 
then  is  there  an  equal,  or  a  more  aggravated  darkness,  over  that 
movement  which  took  place  in  heaven,  when  the  incense  of  a 
sweet-smelling  savor  ascended  to  the  throne,  and  the  wrath  of  the 
Lawgiver,  who  sitteth  thereon,  was  turned  away.     And  what  is 
true  of  each  of  these  doctrines,  regarded  abstractly,  or  in  the  gen- 
eral, is  also  true  of  their  personal  application.     If  we  find  not  that  a 
renewing  process  is  taking  effect  upon   us,  neither  ought  we  to 
figure  that  we  have  any  part  in  the  reconciling  process.     It  is  pos- 
sible to  conceive  the  latter,  even  while  the  old  nature  still  domi- 
neers over  the  whole  man,  and  its  desires  are  indulged  without 
remorse,  or,  at  least,  without  any  effective  resistance.     But  this 
conception  is  not  the  faith  of  the  mind.     It  is  rather  what  the  old. 
writers  would  call  a  figment  of  the  mind.     The  apostle  adverts  to 
unfeigned  faith.     But  surely,  if  a  man  shall  overlook  the  near,  and 
dwell  in  thought,  on  the  unseen  distance  that  is  beyond  it ;  if,  un- 
mindful of  any  transition  in  his  own  breast  from  sin  to  sacredness, 
he  nevertheless  shall  persist  in  the  confidence  of  a  transition  from 
anger  to  complacency  in  the  mind  of  the  Divinity  towards  him; 
if,  without  looking  for  a  present  holiness  on  earth,  he  pictures  for 
himself  a  future  beatitude  in  heaven — he  resembles  the  man  who, 
across  that  haze  of  nature's  atmosphere,  which  wraps  all  things  in 
obscurity,  thinks  to  descry  the  realities  of  the  ulterior  space,  when 
he  has  only  peopled  it  with  gratuitous  imagery  of  his  own.     The 
faith  of  such  a  one  is  feigned.     He  believes  not  the  earthly  things 
which    are  enunciated  in    Scripture;  and,   therefore,  though  he 
should  take  up  with  the  heavenly  things  that  are  enunciated^here, 
they  are  taken  up  by  the  wrong  faculty.     To  him  they  are  not 
the  substantial  objects  of  perception,  but  the  allusions  of  fancy. 

The  traveller  who  publishes  of  distant  countries,  that  we  have 
never  seen,  may  also  have  included  our  own  familiar  neighbor- 
hood in  his  tour,  and  given  a  place  in  his  description  to  its  customs, 
and  its  people,  and  its  scenery.  But  if  his  narrative  of  the  vicin- 
ity that  is  known  were  full  of  misrepresentations  and  errors,  we 
could  have  no  belief  in  his  accoant  of  the  foreign  domains  over 
which  he  had  expatiated.  When  we  believe  not  what  he  tells  us 
of  our  native  shire,  how  can  we  believe  when  he  tells  us  of  shires 
or  provinces  abroad  1  And  by  this  we  may  try  the  soundness  of 
our  faith  in  the  divine  testimony.  It  is  a  testimony  which  em- 
braces the  things  of  earth  and  the  things  of  heaven  ;  which  teaches 
us  the  nature  of  man  as  originally  corrupt,  and  requiring  a  power 
from  above,  that  may  transform  it,  as  well  as  on  the  nature  of 
God,  as  essentially  averse  to  sin,  and  requiring  an  atonement  that 
may  reconcile  and  pacify  it.     If  we  believe  not  What  is  said  of  the 


216  A    KEMPIS'    IMITATION    OF    CHRIST. 

nature  of  man,  and  of  the  doctrine  of  regeneration  that  is  con- 
nected therewith,  then  we  believe  not  what  is  said  of  the  nature 
of  God,  and  of  the  doctrine  of  redemption  that  is  connected  there- 
with. We  may  choose  to  overlook  the  former  revelation,  and 
stretch  our  attention  onward  to  the  latter,  as  that  with  which  our 
fancy  is  most  regaled,  or  our  fears  are  most  effectually  quieted  into 
pleasing  oblivion.  In  this  way,  we  may  seize  on  the  topic  of  imputed 
righteousness,  by  an  effort  of  desire,  or  an  effort  of  imagination  ;  but 
if  the  man  who  does  so  have  an  unseeing  eye  towards  the  topic  of 
his  own  personal  sanctification,  he  has  just  as  little  of  faith  towards 
the  former  article  as  towards  the  latter,  whatever  preference  of 
liking  or  fancy  he  may  entertain  regarding  it.  It  may  play 
around  his  mind  as  one  of  its  most  agreeable  day-dreams,  but  it 
has  not  laid  hold  of  his  conviction.  The  light  that  maketh  the 
doctrine  which  affirms  the  change  of  God's  mind  towards  the  sin- 
ner believingly  visible,  would  also  make  the  doctrine  which  affirms 
the  change  of  the  sinner's  mind  towards  God  believingly  visible. 
If  the  one  be  veiled  from  the  eye  of  faith,  the  other  is  at  least 
equally  so.  It  may  be  imagined  by  the  mind,  but  it  is  not  per- 
ceived.    It  may  be  conceived,  but  it  is  not  credited. 

There  is  a  well-known  publication,  called  the  Traveller's  Guide, 
which  you  may  take  as  your  companion  to  some  distant  land,  but 
the  accuracy  of  which  you  try  upon  the  earlier  stages  of  your 
journey.  If  wholly  incorrect  in  the  description  which  it  gives  of 
the  first  scenes  through  which  you  pass,  you  withdraw  all  your 
confidence  from  its  representation  of  the  future  scenes :  and  it 
may  even  be  so  wide  of  the  truth,  in  respect  of  the  things  that 
are  present  and  visible,  as  should  lead  you  to  infer  that  you  are 
altogether  off  the  road  that  conducts  to  the  place  after  which  you 
are  aiming.  The  Bible  is  a  traveller's  guide — and  it  portrays  the 
characters  of  humility,  and  self-denial,  and  virtuous  discipline,  and 
aspiring  godliness,  which  mark  the  outset  of  the  pilgrimage, — and 
it  also  portrays  the  characters  of  brightness,  and  bliss,  and  glory, 
which  mark  its  termination.  If  you  do  not  believe  that  it  delineates 
truly  the  path  of  transition  in  time,  neither  do  you  believe,  how- 
ever much  you  may  desiderate  and  dwell  upon  the  prospect,  that 
it  sketches  truly,  the  place  of  joyful  habitation  in  eternity.  Or,  at 
least,  you  may  well  conclude,  if  you  are  not  now  on  the  path  of 
holiness,  that  you  are  not  on  the  path  to  heaven.  And  if  you  be- 
lieve not  the  Scripture,  when  it  announces  a  new  spirit  as  your 
indispensable  preparation  here,  there  may  be  a  dazzling  and  de- 
ceitful imagination,  but  there  is  no  real  belief  of  what  it  announces, 
or  of  what  it  promises,  about  paradise  hereafter. 

It  is  thus  that  we  would  try  the  faith  of  Antinomians.  Fancy 
is  not  faith.  A  wilful  and  determined  adherence  of  the  mind  to 
some  beatific  vision,  in  which  it  loves  to  indulge,  is  not  a  believing 
assent  of  the  mind  to  what  a  professed  Teacher  from  heaven  has 
revealed  to  us  of  the  coming  immortality.     How  can  we  believe, 


A    KEMPIS     IMITATION    OF    CHRIST.  217 

upon  His  authority,  that  we  are  to  enter  this  region  of  purity  and 
peace,  if  we  believe  not,  on  the  same  authority,  that  the  road  which 
leads  to  it,  is  a  road  of  mortification,  and  of  new  obedience,  and 
of  strenuous  conflict  with  the  desires  and  urgencies  of  nature  ? 
If  the  eye  of  faith,  or  of  the  understanding,  be  opened  on  some 
field  of  truth  that  is  laid  before  it,  it  will  not  overlook  the  propin- 
quities of  this  contemplation,  while  it  only  admits  the  objects  which 
lie  on  the  remoter  part  of  the  territory.  It  is  evidence  which 
opens  this  eye  ;  and  that  evidence  which  has  failed  to  open  it  to 
what  is  near,  will  equally  fail  to  open  it  to  what  is  distant.  But 
though  4he  eye  of  the  understanding  be  shut,  the  eye  of  the  imag- 
ination may  be  open.  This  requires  no  evidence,  and  the  man 
who  is  without  faith  in  the  realities  which  lie  on  the  other  side  of 
death,  may  nevertheless  be  all  awake  in  his  fancy  to  those  images 
of  bliss  with  which  he  has  embellished  it,  and  may  even  possess 
his  own  heart  with  the  pleasing  anticipation  of  it  as  his  destined 
inheritance.  It  is  not  upon  his  fancy,  however,  but  upon  his  faith, 
that  the  fulfilment  of  this  anticipation  will  turn, — a  faith  which,  had 
it  been  real,  would  have  had  respect  unto  the  prescribed  road,  as 
well  as  unto  the  revealed  inheritance, — a  faith  which  would  have 
found  him  in  holiness  here,  as  well  as  in  heaven  hereafter.  That 
semblance  of  it  which  the  Antinomian  has  is  a  mere  vagary,  that 
may  amuse  or  may  harden  him  in  the  midst  of  his  present  world- 
liness,  but  which  will  be  dissipated  into  nought  at  the  judgment- 
seat,  when,  for  the  treacherous  phantom  which  deceived  him  in 
time,  a  tremendous  reality  will  be  awarded  to  him  for  eternity. 

We  like  not  that  writer  to  be  violently  alleged  against,  who  ex- 
pounds, and  expounds  truly,  the  amount  of  Christian  holiness, 
because  he  says  not  enough,  it  is  thought,  of  the  warrants  and 
securities  that  are  provided  in  the  Gospel  for  Christian  hope. 
We  think,  that  to  shed  a  luminousness  over  one  portion  of  the 
divine  testimony,  is  to  reflect,  at  least,  if  not  immediately  to  shed, 
a  light  on  all  the  other  portions  of  it.  The  doctrine  of  our  ac- 
ceptance, by  faith  in  the  merits  and  propitiation  of  Christ,  is 
worthy  of  many  a  treatise,  and  many  are  the  precious  treatises 
upon  it  which  have  been  offered  to  the  world.  But  the  doctrine 
of  regeneration,  by  the  Spirit  of  Christ,  equally  demands  the 
homage  of  a  separate  lucubration — which  may  proceed  on  the 
truth  of  the  former,  and,  by  the  incidental  recognition  of  it,  when 
it  comes  naturally  in  the  way  of  the  authors's  attention,  marks 
the  soundness  and  the  settlement  of  his  mind  thereupon,  more 
decisively  than  by  the  dogmatic,  and  ostentatious,  and  often  mis- 
placed asseverations  of  an  ultra  orthodoxy.  And  the  clearer  rev- 
elation to  the  eye  of  faith  of  one  article,  will  never  darken  or 
diminish,  but  will,  in  fact,  throw  back  the  light  of  an  augmented  . 
evidence  on  every  other  article.  Like  any  object  that  is  made  up 
of  parts,  which  we  have  frequently  looked  to  in  their  connection, 
and  as  making  up  a  whole — the  more  distinctly  one  part  of  it  is 

28 


218  A    KEMris'    IMITATION    OF    CHRIST. 

made  manifest,  the  more  forcibly  will  all  the  other  parts  of  it  be 
suggested  to  the  mind.  And  thus  it  is.  that  when  pressing  home 
the  necessity  of  one's  own  holiness,  as  his  indispensable  prepara- 
tion for  heaven,  we  do  not  dissever  his  mind  from  the  atonement 
of  Christ,  but  in  reality  do  we  fasten  it  more  closely  than  ever  on 
the  necessity  of  another's  righteousness,  as  his  indispensable  plea 
for  heaven. 

Such  we  apprehend  to  be  the  genuine  influence  of  a  Treatise 
that  is  now  submitted  anew  to  the  Christian  public.  It  certainly 
does  not  abound  in  formal  and  direct  avowals  of  the  righteous- 
ness which  is  by  faith,  and  on  this  account  we  have  hearti  it  ex- 
cepted against.  But  we  know  of  no  reading  that  is  more  power- 
fully calculated  to  shut  us  up  unto  the  faith — none  more  fitted  to 
deepen  and  to  strengthen  the  basis  of  a  sinner's  humility,  and  so 
reconcile  him  to  the  doctrine  of  salvation  in  all  its  parts,  by  grace 
alone — none  that,  by  exhibiting  the  height  and  perfection  of 
Christian  attainments,  can  better  serve  the  end  of  prostrating  the 
inquirer  into  the  veriest  depths  of  self-abasement,  when,  on  the 
humbling  comparison  of  what  he  is,  with  what  he  ought  to  be,  he 
is  touched  and  penetrated  by  a  sense  of  his  manifold  deficiencies. 
It  is  on  this  account  that  the  author  of  such  a  work  may,  instru- 
mentally  speaking,  do  the  office  of  a  schoolmaster  to  bring  us 
unto  Christ :  nor  do  we  know  at  what  other  time  it  is,  than  when 
eyeing  from  afar  the  lofty  track  of  spiritual  and  seraphic  piety 
which  is  here  delineated,  that  we  more  feel  our  need  of  the  great 
High  Priest,  or  that  His  peace-speaking  blood  and  His  perfect 
righteousness  are  more  prized  by  us. 

But  it  is  not  enough  that  we  idly  gaze  on  the  heavenly  course. 
We  must  personally  enter  it ;  and  it  is  most  utterly  and  experimen- 
tally untrue,  that,  in  the  prosecution  of  this  walk,  we  meet  with 
anything  to  darken  the  principles  on  which  are  made  to  hinge  a 
sinner's  justification  in  the  sight  of  God.  He  who  looks  most  fre- 
quently to  Christ,  for  the  purpose  of  imitation,  will  also  gather 
most  from  him  on  which  to  prop  his  confidence,  and  that  to  on 
the  right  and  evangelical  basis.  There  is  a  sure  link  of  concat- 
enation in  the  processes  of  divine  grace,  by  which  a  growing 
spiritual  discernment  is  made  to  emerge  out  of  a  growing  con- 
formity to  the  will  and  the  image  of  the  Saviour.  These  two 
elements  act,  and  re-act,  the  one  upon  the  other.  "  He  that 
keepeth  my  commandments  to  him  will  I  manifest  myself."  "  He 
whose  eye  is  single  shall  have  his  whole  body  full  of  light."* 
"  The  Holy  Ghost,"  who  acts  as  a  revealer,  "  is  given  to  those 
who  obey  Him."  "  To  him  who  hath,  more  shall  be  given."  All 
proving  that  there  is  a  procedure  in  the  administration  of  divine 

*  By  singleness  of  eye  here,  is  meant  not  a  single  intentness  of  the  mind  upon  one 
truth,  but,  as  is  evident  from  the  context,  that  singleness  of  aim  after  an  interest  in 
heaven,  which  is  not  perverted  or  seduced  from  its  object  by  the  love  of  a  present  evil 
world. 


A    KEMPIS'    IMITATION    OF    CHRIST.  219 

grace,  by  which  he  who  giveth  himself  up  unto  all  righteousness 
is  guided  unto  all  truth. 

And,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  that  while  the  doctrine  of  justification  is 
not  argued,  but  rather  enhanced  and  recommended  by  the  perusal 
of  such  a  work,  its  own  distinct  object  will  be  still  more  directly 
subserved,  of  leading  some  to  a  more  strict  and  separate  devot- 
edness  of  life,  than  is  often  to  be  met  with  in  this  professing  age. 
The  severities  of  Christian  practice,  which  are  here-  urged  upon 
the  reader,  are  in  no  way  allied  with  the  penances  and  the  self- 
inflictions  of  a  monastic  ritual,  but.  are  the  essentials  of  spiritual 
discipline  in  all  ages,  and  must  be  undergone  by  every  man  who 
is  transformed  by  the  Holy  Ghost  from  one  of  the  children  of  this 
world  to  one  of  the  children  of  light.  The  utter  renunciation  of 
self- — the  surrender  of  all  vanity — the  patient  endurance  of  evils 
and  wrongs — the  crucifixion  of  natural  and  worldly  desires — the 
absorption  of  all  our  interests  and  passions  in  the  enjoyment  of 
God — and  the  subordination  of  all  we  do,  and  of  all  we  feel,  to 
His  glory, — these  form  the  leading  virtues  of  our  pilgrimage,  and 
in  the  very  proportion  of  their  rarity,  and  their  painfulness,  are 
they  the  more  effectual  tests  of  our  regeneration.  And  one  of  the 
main  uses  of  this  book  is,  that  while  it  enforces  these  spiritual 
graces  in  all  their  extent,  it  lays  open  the  spiritual  enjoyment  that 
springs  from  the  cultivation  of  them — revealing  the  hidden  charm 
which  lies  in  godliness,  and  demonstrating  the  sure  though  secret 
alliance  which  obtains  between  the  peace  of  heaven  in  the  soul, 
and  patience  under  all  the  adversities  of  the  path  which  leads  to 
it.  It  exposes  alike  the  sufferings  and  the  delights  which  attach 
to  a  life  of  sacredness:  and  its  wholesome  tendency  is  to  recon- 
cile the  aspirant  after  eternal  life,  to  the  whole  burden  of  that 
cross  on  earth  which  he  must  learn  to  bear  with  submission  and 
cheerfulness,  until  he  exchanges  it  in  heaven  for  a  crown  of  glory. 
Such  a  work  may  be  of  service  in  these  days  of  soft  and  silken 
professorship, — to  arouse  those  who  are  at  ease  in  Zion ;  to  re- 
mind them  of  the  terms  of  the  Christian  discipleship,  as  involving 
a  life  of  conflict,  and  watchfulness,  and  much  labor  ;  to  make  them 
jealous  of  themselves,  and  jealous  of  that  evil  nature,  the  power 
of  which  must  be  resisted,  but  from  the  besetting  presence  of 
which  we  shall  not  be  conclusively  delivered,  until  death  shall  rid 
us  of  a  frame-work,  the  moral  virus  of  which  may  be  kept  in 
check  while  we  live,  but  cannot  be  eradicated  by  any  process 
short  of  dissolution. 


INTRODUCTORY  ESSAY 

TO 

TREATISES 

ON    THE 

LIFE,   WALK,  AND  TRIUMPH  OF  FAITH. 

BY 

THE  REV.  W.  ROMAINE,  A.M. 


There  is  nothing  of  which  some  readers  of  religious  books 
complain  more  grievously,  than  that  they  should  be  exposed  to  a 
constant  and  wearisome  reiteration  of  the  same  truths  ;  than  that 
the  appetite  of  the  mind  for  variety  should  be  left  to  the  pain  of 
its  own  unsated  cravings,  through  the  never-failing  presentation 
of  some  one  idea,  wherewith,  perhaps,  it  has  long  ago  been  palled 
and  nauseated  ;  than  that,  what  they  already  know  should  yet 
again  and  again  be  told  them — so  as  to  subject  their  attention  to 
topics  that  have  become  tasteless  and  threadbare,  and  their  minds 
to  a  monotony  of  ideas,  that  may,  at  length,  be  felt  to  be  quite 
insupportable.  This  objection  has  sometimes  been  urged  against 
Mr.  Romaine's  excellent  Treatises  on  Faith  ;  and  that,  precious 
and  important  as  they  acknowledge  the  truths  to  be  on  which  he 
unceasingly  delights  to  expatiate,  yet  they  consider  the  frequency 
of  their  recurrence  has  a  tendency  to  produce  in  the  mind  a  feel- 
ing, if  not  of  weariness,  at  least  of  unnecessary  repetition. 

Now,  Paul  himself  admitted  that  to  write  the  same  things  was 
not  grievous  to  himself,  however  grievous  it  may  have  been  felt 
by  those  whom  he  was  in  the  habit  of  addressing.  And,  lest  they 
should  have  felt  his  repetitions  to  be  matter  of  offence  or  of  an- 
noyance, he  tries  to  reconcile  them  to  these  repetitions,  by  affirm- 
ing, that  whether  they  were  agreeable  or  not,  at  least  they  were 
safe.  "  To  write  the  same  things  to  you,  to  me  indeed  is  not 
grievous,  but  for  you  it  is  safe." 

A  process  of  reasoning  gives  a  most  agreeable  play  and  exer- 
cise to  the  faculties.  Yet  how  soon  would  such  a  process,  if  often 


romaine's  treatises  on  faith.  221 

repeated,  feel  stale  to  the  intellectual  taste.  Even  the  pleasure 
we  had  at  the  first,  from  the  important,  and  perhaps,  unexpected 
result  to  which  it  had  conducted  us,  would  speedily  wear  off.  It 
would,  of  course,  instantly  cease  to  be  unexpected :  and  as  to  its 
importance,  we  know  that  this  is  a  property  of  such  truths  as  are 
most  familiar  and  most  generally  recognized  :  and  these,  of  all  oth- 
ers, are  least  fitted  to  stimulate  the  mere  understanding.  Like  the 
element  of  water,  they  may  be  the  most  valuable,  yet  least  prized 
truths  by  us:  and  certain  it  is,  that  by  the  unvarying  announce- 
ment of  them,  they  would,  at  length,  fall  in  downright  bluntness 
and  insipidity  on  the  ear  of  the  inner  man.  It  is  thus  that  a  train 
of  argument,  the  mere  object  of  which  is  to  gain  the  conviction 
of  the  understanding,  does  not  admit  of  being  repeated  indefi- 
nitely. After  having  once  carried  the  conviction,  it  ceases  to  be 
any  longer  needful — and  as  to  the  recreation  which  is  thereby 
afforded  to  the  intellectual  powers,  nothing  is  more  certain,  than 
that  the  enjoyment  would  speedily  decay,  should  the  very  same 
reasoning,  and  the  very  same  truths  be  often  presented  to  the 
notice  of  the  mind,  so  as  at  length  to  flatten  into  a  thing  of  such 
utter  listlessness,  that  no  one  pleasure  could  be  given,  and  no  one 
power  could  be  awakened  by  it. 

And  what  is  true  of  a  train  of  argument  addressed  to  the  rea- 
son, is  also  true  of  those  images  and  illustrations  which  are  ad- 
dressed to  the  fancy.  Whatever  delight  may  have  been  felt  at 
the  original  presentation  of  them,  would  rapidly  subside  were  they 
ever  and  anon  to  be  obtruded  on  the  view.  We  know  of  nothing 
more  exquisite  than  the  sensation  that  is  felt  when  the  light  of 
some  unexpected  analogy,  or  of  some  apt  and  beautiful  similitude 
makes  its  first  entry  into  the  mind.  And  yet  there  is  a  limit  to 
the  enjoyment — nor  would  the  attempt  to  ply  the  imagination  at 
frequent  intervals  with  one  and  the  same  picture  be  long  endured. 
The  welcome  which  it  found  from  its  own  intrinsic  loveliness, 
was  enhanced  by  the  charm  of  novelty ;  but  when  that  charm  is 
dissipated,  then  is  it  possible,  that,  by  the  mere  force  of  repetition, 
the  taste  may  decline  into  languor  or  even  into  loathing.  Both  the 
reason  and  the  fancy  of  man  must  have  variety  to  feed  upon  ; 
and,  wanting  this,  the  constant  reiteration  of  the  same  principles, 
and  the  constant  recital  of  the  same  poetry,  would  indeed  be 
grievous. 

Yet  are  there  certain  appetites  of  the  mind  which  have  no  such 
demand  for  variety.  It  is  not  with  the  affections,  or  the  moral 
feelings,  as  it  is  with  other  principles  of  our  nature.  The  desire 
of  companionship,  for  example,  may  find  its  abundant  and  full 
gratification  in  the  society  of  a  very  few  friends.  And  often  may 
it  happen  of  an  individual,  that  his  presence  never  tires — that  his 
smile  is  the  sunshine  of  a  perpetual  gladness  to  the  heart — that  in 
his  looks  and  accents  of  kindness,  there  is  a  charm  that  is  peren- 
nial and  unfadinar — that  the  utterance  of  his  name  is  at  all  times 


222 


RoM.UNES    TREATISES    ON    FAITH. 


pleasing  to  the  ear  ;  and  the  thought  of  his  worth  or  friendship  is 
felt  as  a  cordial,  by  the  hourly  and  habitual  ministration  of  which 
the  soul  is  upheld.  The  man  who  expatiates  on  his  virtues,  or 
who  demonstrates  to  you  the  sincerity  of  his  regards,  or  who  re- 
freshes your  memory  with  such  instances  of  his  fidelity  as  indeed 
you  had  not  forgotten,  but  which  still  you  love  to  be  retold — it  is 
but  one  theme  or  one  topic  in  which  he  indulges  ;  and  often  will 
he  retail  in  your  hearing  what  substantially  are  the  same  things, 
— yet  are  they  not  grievous. 

And  the  tale  of  another's  friendly  and  favorable  inclination  to 
you  will  not  merely  bear  to  be  often  repeated,  because  in  the  con- 
scious possession  of  friendship  there  is  a  perpetual  enjoyment,  but 
also  because  there  is  in  it  a  constant   preservative,  and  a  charm 
against  the  discomfort  to  which  a  mind,  when  left  to  other  influ- 
ences, or  to  itself,  might  else  be  liable.     When  the  heart  is  des- 
olated by  affliction,  or  harassed  with  care,  or  aggrieved  by  injus- 
tice and  calumny,  or  even  burdened  under  the  weight  of  a  solitude 
which  it  feels  to  be  a  weariness,  who  would  ever  think  of  appre- 
hending lest  the  daily  visit  of  your  best  friend  should  be  grievous, 
because  it  was  the  daily  application  of  the  same  thing?     Would 
not  you,  in  these  circumstances,  fondly  cling  to  his  person,  or,  if 
at  a  distance,  would  not  your  heart  as  fondly  cling  to  the  remem- 
brance of  him  ?     Would  not  you  be  glad  to  bear  up  the  down- 
ward and  the  desponding  tendencies  of  the  heart,  by  the  thought  of 
that  unalterable  affection,  which    survived  the  wreck    of   your 
other  earthly  hopes,  and  earthly  interests  ?     Would  not  you  feel 
it  a  service,  if  any  acquaintance  of  yours  were  to  conduct  him  in 
person  to  your  chamber  ;  and  there  to  bring  upon  you  the  very 
smiles  that  a  thousand  times  before  had  gladdened  your  bosom, 
and  the  very  accents  of  tenderness  that  had  often,  in  days  which 
are  past,  soothed  and  tranquillized  you  ?     Or,  if  he  cannot  make 
him  present  to  you  in  person,  is  not  a  service  still  rendered,  if  he 
make  him  present  to  your  thoughts?     You  have  no  doubt  of  the 
alleged  friendship,  but  nature  is  forgetful,  and,  for  the  time  being, 
it  may  not  be  adverting  to  that  truth  which,  of  all  others,  is  most 
fitted  to  pacify  and  to  console  it.     The  memory  needs  to  be 
awakened   to  it.     The  belief  of  it  may  never  have  been  extin- 
guished ;  but  the  conception  of  it  may  be  absent  from  the  mind, 
and  for  the  purpose  of  recalling  it.  the  voice  of  a  remembrancer 
may  be  necessary.     It  is  thus  that  the  opportune  suggestion  of  a 
truth,  which  has  long  been  known,  and  often  repeated,  may  still 
the  tumults  of  an  agitated  spirit,  and  cause  light  to  arise  out  of 
darkness.     And  who  eun  object  to  sameness,  and  to  reiteration, 
in  such  a  case  as  this  ?     The  same  position  brought  forward  again 
and  again,  for  the  mere  didactic  purpose  to  convince  or  to  inform, 
might,  however  important,  soon  cease  to  interest  the  understand 
ing ;  and  the  same  image,  however  beautiful,  might,  if  often  pre- 
sented, soon  cease  to  interest  or  to  affect  the  fancy — but  the  aifir 


romaine's  treatises  on  faith.  223 

toation  of  a  friendship  that  is  clear  to  your  heart,  may  be  repeated 
as  often  as  is  necessary  to  raise  and  to  prolong  the  sense  of  it 
within  you — and,  although  the  theme  of  every  day,  still,  instead 
of  being  grievous  on  that  account,  may  it  be  felt  like  the  renewed 
application  of  balsam  to  the  soul,  with  as  lively  a  sense  of  enjoy- 
ment as  before,  and  with  a  delight  that  is  utterly  inexhaustible. 

The  same  holds  true  of  a  moral  principle.  The  announcement 
of  it  needs  not  to  be  repeated  with  a  view  to  inform ;  but  it  may- 
be repeated  with  a  view  to  influence,  and  that  on  every  occur- 
rence of  temptati-on  or  necessity.  Were  it  our  only  business  with 
virtue  to  learn  what  it  is,  it  were  superfluous  to  be  told  oftener 
than  once,  that  anger  degrades  and  discomposes  him  who  is  car- 
ried away  by  it,  and  ought  to  be  resisted  as  alike  a  violation  of 
duty  and  of  dignity.  But  as  our  main  business  with  virtue  is  to 
practise  it,  the  very  same  thing  of  which  by  one  utterance  we 
have  been  sufficiently  informed,  might  be  often  uttered,  with  pro- 
priety and  effect,  in  order  that  we  should  be  reminded  of  it.  And, 
accordingly  in  som-e  hour  of  great  and  sudden  provocation,  when 
another's  fraud  or  another's  ingratitude  would  take  full  possession 
of  the  feelings,  and  shut  out  from  the  mind's  regard  every  element 
that  had  influence  to  still  or  to  arrest  the  coming  storm,  were  it 
not  well,  if  some  friendly  monitor  were  standing  by,  and  bidding 
him  be  calm  ?  There  might  not,  in  the  whole  of  the  remonstrance, 
be  one  consideration  employed,  which  has  not  often  been  recog- 
nized, nor  one  principle  urged,  which  has  not  been  admitted,  long 
ago,  into  his  ethical  system,  and  is  perfectly  familiar  to  his  under- 
standing, as  a  sound  principle  of  human  conduct.  Yet  it  is  not 
superfluous  again  to  urge  it  upon  him.  A  practical  object  is 
gained  by  this  timely  suggestion — and  it  is  the  highest  function  of 
practical  wisdom,  not  to  devise  what  is  new,  but  seasonably  to  re- 
call what  is  old.  When  in  the  heat  and  the  hurry  of  some  brood- 
ing fermentation,  there  is  one  intense  feeling  that  has  taken  exclu- 
sive occupation  of  the  soul,  it  is  well  that  some  counteractive 
influence  might  be  poured  in,  which  shall  assuage  its  violence. 
And  this  influence,  generally,  lies  not  with  new  truths  which  are 
then  for  the  first  time  apprehended,  but  with  old  truths  which  are 
then  brought  to  the  remembrance.  So  that,  while  for  the  author 
to  repeat  the  same  things  is  not  grievous,  for  the  reader  it  may  be 
safe. 

The  doctrine  of  Jesus  Christ  and  Him  crucified,  which  forms 
the  principal  and  pervading  theme  in  the  following  Treatises,  pos- 
sesses a  prominent  claim  to  a  place  in  our  habitual  recollections. 
And,  for  this  purpose,  ought  it  to  be  the  topic  of  frequent  reitera- 
tion by  every  Christian  author  ;  and  it  may  well  form  the  staple 
of  many  a  Christian  treatise,  and  be  the  leading  and  oft-repeated 
argument  of  many  a  religious  conversation.  It  is  this  which 
ushers  into  the  mind  of  a  sinner  the  sense  of  God  as  his  Friend 
and  his  reconciled  Father.     That  mind,  which  is  so  apt  to  be 


224  eomaine's  treatises  on  faith. 

overborne  by  this  world's  engrossments — or  to  lapse  into  the 
dread  and  distrust  of  a  conscious  offender — or  to  go  back  again 
to  nature's  lethargy,  and  nature's  alienation — or  to  lose  itself  in 
quest  of  a  righteousness  of  its  own,  by  which  it  might  challenge 
the  reward  of  a  blissful  eternity, — stands  in  need  of  a  daily  visitor 
who,  by  his  presence,  might  dissipate  the  gloom,  or  clear  away 
the  perplexity,  in  which  these  strong  and  practical  tendencies  of 
the  human  constitution  are  so  ready  to  involve  it.  There  is  with 
man  an  obstinate  forgetfulness  of  God  ;  so  that  the  Being  who 
made  h;m  is  habitually  away  from  his  thoughts.  That  he  may 
again  be  brought  nigh,  there  must  be  an  open  door  of  entry  by 
which  the  mind  of  man  can  welcome  the  idea  of  God,  and  will- 
ingly entertain  it ;  by  which  the  imagination  of  Deity  might  be- 
come supportable,  and  even  pleasing  to  the  soul :  so  that,  when 
present  to  our  remembrance,  there  should  be  the  felt  presence  of 
one  who  loves  and  is  at  peace  with  us.  Now,  it  is  only  by  the 
doctrine  of  the  cross  that  man  can  thus  delight  himself  in  God, 
and,  at  the  same  time,  be  free  from  delusion.  This  is  the  way  of 
access  for  man  entering  into  friendship  with  God,  and  for  the 
thought  of  God,  as  a  Friend,  entering  into  the  heart  of  man.  And 
thus  it  is,  that  the  sound  of  his  Saviour's  love  carries  with  it  such 
a  fresh  and  unfailing  charm  to  a  believer's  ear.  It  is  the  precur- 
sor to  an  act  of  mental  fellowship  with  God,  and  is  hailed  as  the 
sound  of  the  approaching  footsteps  of  Him  whom  you  know  to 
be  your  Friend. 

When  the  mind,  abandoned  to  itself,  takes  its  own  spontaneous 
and  undirected  way,  it  is  sure  to  wander  from  God  ;  and  hence, 
if  without  effort,  and  without  watchfulness,  will  it  lapse  into  a  state 
of  insensibility  in  regard  to  Him.  While  in  the  corrupt  and  earthly 
frame  of  our  present  tabernacle,  there  is  a  constant  gravitation  of 
the  heart  towards  ungodliness ;  and,  against  this  tendency,  there 
needs  to  be  applied  the  counterpoise  of  such  a  force  as  shall  either 
act  without  intermission,  or  by  frequent  and  repeated  impulses. 
The  belief  that  God  is  your  Friend  in  Christ  Jesus,  is  just  the  re- 
storative, by  which  the  soul  is  brought  back  again  from  the  leth- 
argy into  which  it  had  fallen  ;  and  the  great  preservative  by  which 
it  is  upheld  from  sinking  anew  into  the  depths  of  its  natural  aliena- 
tion. It  is  by  cherishing  this  belief,  and  by  a  constant  recurrence 
of  the  mind  to  that  great  truth  which  is  the  object  of  it,  that  a 
sense  of  reconciliation,  or  the  felt  nearness  of  God  as  your  Friend, 
is  kept  up  in  the  bosom.  And  if  the  mind  will  not,  by  its  own  en- 
ergies, constantly  recur  to  the  truth,  it  is  good  that  the  truth  should 
be  frequently  obtruded  on  the  notice  of  the  mind.  *'  Rejoice  in 
the  Lord  always,  and  again  I  say,  rejoice."  If  there  be  an  apti- 
tude in  man,  which  undoubtedly  there  is,  to  let  slip  the  things  that 
belong  to  his  peace,  it  is  good  to  be  ever  and  anon  presenting 
these  things  to  his  view,  and  bidding  him  give  earnest  heed  unto 
them.     It  is  not  that  his  judgment  would  be  thereby  informed,  nor 


ROMAINE  S    TREATISES    ON    FAITH.  225 

that  his  imagination  would  be  thereby  regaled,  but  that  his  mem- 
ory would  be  awakened,  and  his  practical  tendency  to  forget  or 
fall  asleep  unto  these  things  would  be  thereby  made  head  against. 
And  thus  there  are  certain  things,  the  constant  repetition  of  which, 
by  Christian  writers,  ought  not  to  be  thought  grievous,  and  at  all 
events  is  safe. 

And  there  is  a  perpetual  tendency  in  nature  not  only  to  forget 
God,  but  also  to  misconceive  Him.  There  is  nothing  more  firmly 
interwoven  with  the  moral  constitution  of  man  than  a  legal  spirit 
towards  God,  with  its  aspirings,  and  its  jealousies,  and  its  fears. 
Let  the  conscience  be  at  all  enlightened,  and  a  sense  of  manifold 
deficiencies  from  the  rule  of  perfect  obedience  is  altogether  una- 
voidable ;  and  so  there  is  ever  lurking  in  the  recesses  of  our  heart 
a  dread  and  a  misgiving  about  God — the  secret  apprehension  of 
Him  as  our  enemy — a  certain  distrust  of  Him,  or  feeling  of  preca- 
riousness  ;  so  that  we  have  little  comfort  and  little  satisfaction 
while  we  entertain  the  thought  of  Him.  Were  that  a  mere  intel- 
lectual error  by  which  we  hold  the  favor  of  God  to  be  a  purchase 
with  the  righteousness  of  man,  and  so  failing  in  the  establishment 
of  such  a  righteousness,  we  remained  without  hope  in  the  world  ; 
or  were  that  a  mere  intellectual  error  by  which  we  continued 
blind  to  the  offered  righteousness  of  Christ,  and  so,  declining  the 
offer,  kept  our  distance  from  the  only  ground  on  which  God  and 
man  can  walk  in  amity  together  ;  then,  like  any  other  error  of  the 
understanding,  it  might  be  done  conclusively  away  by  one  state- 
ment or  one  demonstration.  But  when,  instead  of  a  fault  in  the 
judgment,  which  might  thus  be  satisfied  by  a  single  announcement, 
it  is  a  perverse  constitutional  bias  that  needs  to  be  at  all  times 
plied  against,  by  the  operation  of  a  contrary  influence — then  it 
might  not  be  on  the  strength  of  one  deliverance  only,  but  by  dint 
of  its  strenuous  and  repeated  asseveration,  that  the  sense  of  God  as 
both  a  just  God  and  a  Saviour  is  upheld  in  the  soul.  This  might 
just  be  the  aliment  by  which  the  soul  is  kept  from  pining  under 
;t  sense  of  its  own  poverty  and  nakedness — the  bread  of  life 
which  it  receives  by  faith,  and  delights  at  all  times  to  feed  upon  : 
and  just  as  hunger  does  not  refuse  the  same  viands  by  which,  a 
thousand  times  before,  it  has  been  met  and  satisfied,  so  may  the 
doctrine  of  Christ  crucified  be  that  spiritual  food  which  is  ever 
welcomed  by  the  hungry  and  heavy-laden  soul,  and  is  ever  felt  to 
be  precious. 

The  Bible  supposes  a  tendency  in  man  to  let  slip  its  truths  from 
his  recollection,  and,  in  opposition  to  this,  it  bids  him  keep  them  in 
memory,  else  he  might  have  believed  them  in  vain.  It  is  not 
enough  that  they  may,  at  one  time,  have  been  received.  They 
must  be  at  all  times  remembered.  "  And  therefore,"  says  Peter, 
*'I  will  not  be  negligent  to  put  you  always  in  remembrance  of 
these  things,  though  ye  know  them  and  be  established  in  the 
present  truth."     To  know  and  to   be  assured  is  not  enough,  it 

29 


226  romaine's  treatises  on  faith. 

would  appear.  They  may  at  one  time  have  consented  to  the 
words  which  were  spoken,  but  the  apostle  presented  them  anew, 
in  order  that  they  might  be  mindful  of  the  words  which  were 
spoken.  Those  doctrines  of  religion  which  speak  comfort,  or  have 
an  attendant  moral  influence  upon  the  soul,  must  at  first  be  learned  ; 
but  not,  like  many  of  the  doctrines  of  science,  consigned  to  a  place 
of  dormancy  among  the  old  and  forgotten  acquisitions  of  the 
understanding.  They  stand  in  place  of  a  kind  and  valuable 
friend,  of  whom  it  is  not  enough  that  he  has  once  been  introduced 
to  your  acquaintance,  but  with  whom  you  hold  it  precious  to  have 
daily  fellowship,  and  to  be  in  your  habitual  remembrance.  And 
this  is  eminently  true  of  that  doctrine  which  is  so  frequently  reit- 
erated in  these  Treatises,  "that  Christ  died  for  our  sins,  according 
to  the  Scriptures."  It  is  the  portal  through  which  the  light  of 
God's  reconciled  countenance  is  let  in  upon  the  soul.  It  is  the 
visitor  that  ushers  there  the  peace  and  glory  of  heaven,  and,  forc- 
ing its  way  through  all  those  cold  and  heavy  obstructions  by 
which  the  legal  spirit  has  beset  the  heart  of  proud  yet  impotent 
man — it  is  the  alone  truth  that  can  at  once  hush  the  fears  of  guilt, 
and  command  a  reverence  for  the  offended  Sovereign.  No  won- 
der, then,  that  its  presence  should  be  so  much  courted  by  all  who 
have  been  touched  with  the  reality  and  the  magnitude  of  eternal 
things — by  all  who  have  ever  made  the  question  of  their  accep- 
tance with  God  a  matter  of  earnest  and  home-felt  application; 
and  who,  urged  on  the  one  hand,  by  the  authority  of  a  law  that 
must  be  vindicated,  and  on  the  other,  by  the  sense  of  a  condem- 
nation that,  to  the  eye  of  nature,  appears  inextricable,  must  give 
supreme  welcome  to  the  message  that  can  assure  them  of  a  way 
by  which  both  God  may  be  glorified  and  the  sinner  may  be  safe. 
It  is  the  blood  of  Christ  which  resolves  this  mystery,  and  it  is  by 
the  daily  application  of  this  blood  to  the  conscience  that  peace  is 
daily  upheld  there.  When  the  propitiation  by  Christ  is  out  of  the 
mind,  then,  on  the  strength  of  its  old  propensities,  does  it  lapse 
either  into  the  forgetfulness  of  God,  or  into  a  fearful  distrust  of 
Him.  And  therefore  it  is,  that  every  aspiring  Christian  prizes 
every  intimation,  and  every  token  of  remembrance,  by  which  to 
recall  to  his  mind  the  thought  of  a  crucified  Saviour.  And  he  no 
more  quarrels  with  a  perpetual  sense  of  Him  who  poured  out  His 
soul  unto  death,  than  he  would  with  the  perpetual  sunshine  of  a 
brilliant  and  exhilarating  day  :  and  just  as  a  joy  and  a  thankful- 
arc  felt  at  every  time  when  the  sun  breaks  out  from  the 
clouds  which  lie  scattered  over  the  firmament — so  is  that  beam  of 
gladness  which  enters  with  the  very  name  of  Christ,  when  it  finds 
its  way  through  that  dark  and  disturbed  atmosphere  which  isever 
apt  to  gather  around  the  soul.  The  light  of  beauty  is  not  more 
constantly  pleasant  to  the  eye — the  ointment  that  is  poured  forth 
not  more  constantly  agreeable  in  its  odor — the  relished  and 
wholesome  food  not  more  constantly  palatable  to  the  ever-recur- 


romaine's  treatises  on  faith.  227 

ling  appetite  of  hunger — the  benignant  smile  of  tried  and  approved 
friendship  not  more  constantly  delicious  to  the  heart  of  man,  than 
is  the  sense  of  a  Saviour's  sufficiency  to  him  of  spiritual  and  new- 
born desires,  who  now  hungers  and  thirsts  after  righteousness. 

This  may  explain  the  untried  and  unexpended  delight  where- 
with the  Christian  hangs  upon  a  theme  which  sounds  monoto- 
nously, and  is  felt  to  be  wearisome  by  other  men:  and  this  is  one 
test  by  which  he  may  ascertain  his  spiritual  condition.  There  is 
much  associated  with  religion  that  is  fitted  to  regale  even  a  mind 
that  is  unrenewed,  if  open  to  the  charms  of  a  tasteful,  or  pathetic, 
or  eloquent  representation.  And  thus  it  is,  that  crowds  may  be 
drawn  around  a  pulpit  by  the  same  lure  of  attraction  which  fills  a 
theatre  with  raptured  and  applauding  multitudes.  To  uphold  the 
loveliness  of  the  song,  might  the  preacher  draw  on  all  the  beauties 
of  nature,  while  he  propounds  the  argument  of  nature's  God  :  nor 
need  the  deep,  the  solemn  interest  of  tragedy  be  wanting,  with 
such  topics  at  command  as  the  sinner's  restless  bed,  and  the  dark 
imagery  of  guilt  and  vengeance  wherewith  it  is  surrounded :  and 
again,  may  the  fairest  tints  of  heaven  be  employed  to  deck  the 
perspective  of  a  good  man's  anticipations  ;  or  the  touching  asso- 
ciations of  home  be  pressed  into  the  service  of  engaging  all  our' 
sympathies,  with  the  feelings,  and  the  struggles,  and  the  hopes  of 
his  pious  family.  It  is  thus  that  the  theological  page  may  be 
richly  strewed  with  the  graces  of  poetry,  and  even  the  feast  of  in- 
tellect be  spread  before  us  by  the  able  champions  of  theological 
truth.  Yet  all  this  delight  would  require  novelty  to  sustain  it, 
and  be  in  full  congeniality  with  minds  on  which  the  unction  of 
living  water  from  above  had  never  yet  descended.  It  is  alto- 
gether diverse  from  that  spiritual  taste,  by  which  the  simple  appli- 
cation of  the  cross  to  the  sinner's  conscience  is  felt  and  appreci- 
ated— by  which  the  utterance  of  the  Saviour's  name  is  at  all  times 
welcomed  Jike  the  sound  of  sweetest  music — by  which  a  sen- 
sation of  relief  enters,  with  all  the  power  and  freshness  of  a  new 
feeling,  so  often  as  the  conception  of  His  atoning  blood,  and  of 
His  perfect  righteousness,  is  made  to  visit  us — by  which  the  reit- 
eration of  His  sacrifice  upon  the  ear,  has  a  like  effect  to  disperse 
the  habitual  distrust  or  lethargy  of  nature,  that  the  ever-recurring 
presence  of  a  friend  has  to  disperse  the  gloom  of  a  constitutional 
melancholy.  It  is  no  evidence  of  his  vital  Christianity,  that  a  man 
can  enjoy  a  kindred  recreation  in  those  embellishments  of  genius 
or  literature  of  which  the  theme  is  susceptible.  But  if  its  simple 
affirmations  be  sweet  unto  him — if  the  page  be  never  lovelier  in 
his  eye  than  when  gemmed  with  Bible  quotations  that  are  both 
weighty  and  pertinent — if  when  pervaded  throughout  by  a  refer- 
ence to  Christ,  and  to  Him  crucified,  it  be  felt  and  rejoiced  in  like 
the  incense  of  a  perpetual  savor,  and  he,  withal  a  son  of  learning 
and  generous  accomplishment,  can  love,  even  in  its  homeliest  garb 
the  oft-repeated  truth ;  and  that,  purely  because  the  balm  of  Gil- 


228  romance's  treatises  on  faith. 

ead  is  there. — ihis  we  should  hold  the  evidence  of  one  who,  so  far 
at  least,  has  been  enlightened,  and  has  tasted  of  the  heavenly  gift. 
and  has  been  made  a  partaker  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  has  tasted 
of  the  good  word  of  God.  and  the  powers  of  the  world  to  come. 

We  know  of  no  Treatises  where  this  evangelical  infusion  so 
pervades    the    whole    substance    of  them  as  those  of  Romaine. 
Though  there  is  no  train  of  consecutive  argument — though  there 
is  no  great  power  or  variety  of  illustration — though  we  cannot  al- 
lege in  their  behalf  much  richness  of  imagery,  or  even  much  depth 
of  Christian  experience.     And,  besides,  though  we  were  to  take 
up  any  of  his  paragraphs  at  random,  we  should  find  that,  with 
some  little  variation  in  the  workmanship  of  each,  there  was  mainly 
one  ground  or  substratum  for  them  all — yet  the  precious  and  con- 
soling truths,  which  he  ever  and  anon  presents,  must  endear  them 
lo  those  who  are  anxious  to  maintain  in  their  minds  a  rejoicing 
sense  of  God  as  their  reconciled  Father.     He  never  ceases  to  make 
mention  of  Christ  and  of  His  righteousness — and  it  is  by  the  con- 
stant droppings  of  this  elixir  that  the  whole  charm  and  interest  of 
his  writings  are  upheld.     With  a  man  whose  ambition  and  de- 
light it  was  to  master  the  difficulties  of  an  argument ;  or  with  a 
man  whose  chief  enjoyment  it  was  to  range  at  will  over  the  do- 
mains of  poetry,  we  can  conceive  nothing  more  tasteless  or  tame 
than  these  Treatises  that  are  now  offered  to  the  public.     Yet,  in 
despite  of  that  literary  nakedness  which  they  may  exhibit  to  the 
eye  of  the  natural  man,  who  possesses  no  spiritual  taste,  and  no 
spiritual  discernment,  let  such  a  man  have  his  eye  opened  to  the 
hidden  glories  of  that  theme,  which,  of  all  others,  was  dear  to  the 
bosom  of  their  author,  and,  whether  from   the  press  or  from  the 
pulpit,  was  the  one  theme  on  which  he  ever  loved  to  expatiate — 
let  the  sense  of  guilt  but  fasten  upon  his  conscience,  and  the  sure 
but  simple  remedy  of  faith  in  the  blood  of  Christ  recommend  itself 
as  that  power  of  God  which  alone  is  able  to  dissolve' it — let  him 
be  made  to  feel  the  suitableness  that  there  is  between  this  pre- 
cious application,  and  that  inward  disease  of  which  the  malignity 
and  the  soreness  have  now  been  revealed  to  him — then,  like  as  it 
is  at  all  times  pleasing,  when  there  is  laid  over  a  bodily  wound  the 
emollient  that  relieves  it,  so  is  it  at  all  times  pleasing,  whenever 
the  spiritual  malady  is  felt,  to  have  recourse  upon  that  unction  by 
the  sprinkling  of  which  it  is  washed  away.     A  feeling  of  joy  in  the 
Redeemer  will  be  ever  prompting  to  the  same  contemplations,  and 
to  the  utterance  of  the  same  things.     To  a  regenerated  spirit,  that 
never  can  be  a  weariness  in  time,  which  is  to  form  the  song  of 
eternity. 

But  it  is  of  importance  to  remark,  that  the  theme  on  which  Mr. 
Romaine  so  much  loves  to  expatiate,  is  a  purifying  as  well  as  a 
pleasing  theme.  It  is  not  only  not  grievous  to  indulge  in  it,  but, 
most  assuredly,  to  every  true-hearted  Christian,  it  is  safe.  We 
are  aware  of  the  alleged  danger  which  some  entertain  of  the  ten- 


EOMAINE  S    TREATISES    ON    FAITH.  229 

dency  of  such  a  full  and  free  exhibition  of  the  grace  of  the  Gos- 
pel, to  produce  Antinomianism.  But  the  way  to  avert  this,  is 
not  by  casting  any  part  of  Gospel  truth  into  the  shade.  It  is  to 
spread  open  the  whole  of  it,  and  give  to  every  one  part  the  relief 
and  the  prominency  that  it  has  in  Scripture.  We  are  not  to  miti- 
gate the  doctrines  of  a  justifying  faith,  and  an  all-perfect  righteous- 
ness, because  of  the  abuse  that  has  been  made  of  them  by  hypo- 
crites— but,  leaving  to  these  doctrines  all  their  prominency,  we 
are  to  place  by  their  side  the  no  less  important  and  undeniable 
truths,  that  heaven  is  the  abode  of  holy  creatures,  and  that,  ere  we 
are  qualified  for  admittance  there,  we  must  become  holy  and  heav- 
enly ourselves.  Nor  is  there  a  likelier  way  of  speeding  this  prac- 
tical transformation  upon  our  souls,  than  by  keeping  up  there, 
through  the  blood  of  Christ,  a  peace  in  the  conscience,  which  is 
never  truly  done,  without  a  love  in  the  heart  being  kept  up  along 
with  it.  Those  who  are  justified  by  faith  in  the  righteousness  of 
Christ,  and,  in  consequence  of  which,  have  that  peace  with  God 
which  this  author  labors  so  earnestly  to  maintain  in  the  mind,  walk 
not  after  the  flesh,  but  after  the  Spirit :  and  that  man's  faith  in  the 
offered  Saviour  is  not  real,  nor  has  he  given  a  cordial  acceptance 
to  that  grace  which  is  so  freely  revealed  in  the  Gospel,  if  he  do  not 
demonstrate  the  existence  of  this  faith  in  his  heart,  by  its  opera- 
tion in  his  character.  A  hypocrite  may  pervert  the  grace  of  the 
Gospel,  as  he  will  seek  a  shelter  for  his  iniquities,  wherever  it  can 
be  found.  But  because  he  receives  it  deceitfully,  this  is  no  reason 
why  it  should  be  withheld  from  those  who  receive  it  in  truth. 
The  truths  which  he  abuses  to  his  own  destruction,  are,  neverthe- 
less, the  very  truths  which  serve  to  aliment  the  gratitude  and  the 
new  obedience  of  every  honest  believer,  who  gives  welcome  ac- 
ceptance to  all  things  whatsoever  that  are  written  in  the  book  of 
God's  counsel,  and  finds  room  enough  in  his  moral  system  for  both 
of  the  positions — that  he  is  justified  by  faith,  and  that  he  is  judged 
by  works. 


INTRODUCTORY  ESSAY 

TO 

THE   CHRISTIAN   REMEMBRANCER. 


BY 

AMBROSE  SERLE,  Esq. 


It  is  quite  possible  that  a  doctrine  may  at  one  time  have  been 
present  to  our  minds,  to  the  evidence  of  which  we  then  attended, 
and  the  truth  of  which  we  did  in  consequence  believe  ;  and  yet, 
in  the  whole  course  of  our  future  thoughts,  may  it  never  again 
have  occurred  to  our  remembrance.  This  is  quite  possible  of  a 
doctrine  in  science ;  and  it  may  also  be  conceived  of  a  doctrine 
in  theology,  that  on  one  day  it  may  have  been  the  object  of  faith, 
and  never  on  any  succeeding  day  be  the  object  of  memory.  In 
this  case,  the  doctrine,  however  important,  and  though  appertain- 
ing to  the  very  essence  of  the  Gospel,  is  of  no  use.  It  is  not 
enough  that  we  have  received  the  Gospel,  we  must  stand  in  it. 
And  it  is  not  enough  that  we  barely  believe  it,  for  we  are  told,  on 
the  highest  authority,  that  unless  we  keep  it  in  memory  we  have 
believed  in  vain. 

This  may  lead  us  to  perceive  that  there  is  an  error  in  the  im- 
aginations of  those  who  think,  that  after  having  understood  and 
acquiesced  in  Christian  truth,  there  is  an  end  of  all  they  have  to 
do  with  it.  There  is,  with  many,  a  most  mischievous  repose  of 
mind  upon  this  subject.  They  know  that  by  faith  they  are  saved, 
and  they  look  to  the  attainment  of  this  faith  as  a  terminating  good, 
with  the  possession  of  which,  could  they  only  arrive  at  it,  they 
would  be  satisfied ;  and  they  regard  the  articles  of  a  creed  in 
much  the  same  light  that  they  do  the  articles  of  a  title-deed, 
which  may  lie  in  their  repository  for  years,  without  once  being 
referred  to  ;  and  they  have  the  lurking  impression,  that  if  this 
creed  were  once  fairly  lodged  among  the  receptacles  of  the  inner 
man,  and  only  produced  in  the  great  day  of  the  examination  of 
passports,  it  would  secure  their  entry  into  heaven — just  as  the  title- 
deed  in  possession,  though  never  once  looked  to,  guarantees  to 
them  a  right  to  all  that  is  conveyed  by  it.     The  mental  tablet  on 


serle's  christian  remembrancer.  231 

which  are  inscribed  their  articles  of  belief,  is  consigned,  as  it  were, 
to  some  place  of  concealment  within  them,  where  it  lies  in  a  kind 
of  forgotten  custody,  instead  of  hanging  out  to  the  eye  of  the 
mind,  and  there  made  the  subject  of  busy  and  perpetual  observa- 
tion. It  is  not  like  a  paper  filled  with  the  principles  and  standing 
rules  of  a  court,  and  to  which  there  must  be  a  daily  reference  for 
the  purpose  of  daily  procedure  and  regulation.  It  is  more,  to 
make  use  of  a  law  term,  like  a  paper  in  retentis — perhaps  making 
good  to  them  certain  privileges  which  never  will  be  questioned, 
or  ready  to  be  produced  on  any  remote  and  distant  occasion, 
when  such  a  measure  may  be  called  for.  Now  this  is  a  very  great 
misconception ;  and  whenever  we  see  orthodoxy  contentedly 
slumbering  over  its  fancied  acquisitions,  and  resting  securely  upon 
the  imagination  that  all  its  business  is  now  settled  and  set  by,  we 
may  be  very  sure  that  it  is  something  like  this  which  lies  at  the 
bottom  of  it. 

To  rectify  this  wrong  imagination,  let  it  never  be  forgotten, 
that  everywhere  in  the  Bible,  those  truths  by  the  belief  of  which 
we  are  saved,  have  this  efficacy  ascribed  to  them,  not  from  the 
mere  circumstance  of  their  having  once  been  believed,  but  after 
they  are  believed,  from  the  circumstance  of  their  being  constantly 
adverted  to.  The  belief  of  them  on  the  one  hand  is  indispensa- 
ble ;  for  let  this  be  withheld,  and  the  habitual  recurrence  of  the 
mind  to  them  is  of  no  more  use,  than  would  be  its  constant  ten- 
dency to  dwell  on  such  fancies  as  it  knew  to  be  chimerical.  But 
this  habitual  recurrence  is  just  as  indispensable  ;  for  let  this  be 
withheld,  and  the  belief  of  them  were  of  no  more  use,  than  would 
be  that  of  any  other  salutary  truth,  forgotten  as  to  the  matter  of 
it,  and  therefore  utterly  neglected  as  to  its  application.  The  child 
who  is  told  of  his  father's  displeasure,  should  he  spend  that  hour 
in  amusement  which  is  required  to  be  spent  in  scholarship,  may  be- 
lieve this  at  the  time  of  the  announcement.  But  when  the  hour 
comes,  should  the  intimation  slip  from  his  memory,  he  has  believed 
in  vain.  And  from  the  apostle's  declaration,  who  assures  us,  that 
unless  we  keep  the  truth  in  memory  we  have  believed  in  vain, 
may  we  gather  what  that  is  which  forms  the  true  function  and 
design  of  the  faith  that  is  unto  salvation.  It  is  not  that  by  the 
bare  possession  of  the  doctrines  which  it  appropriates  as  so  many 
materials,  salvation  may  be  purchased :  it  is  that  by  the  use  to 
which  these  materials  are  put,  we  may  come  into  a  state  of  salva- 
tion. It  is  not  that  truths  lying  in  a  state  of  dormancy  within  us, 
form  so  many  titles  in  our  behalf  to  the  purchased  inheritance  :  it 
is  that  truths  ever  present  to  the  waking  faculties  of  our  mind, 
(and  they  never  can  be  so  without  being  remembered,)  have  an 
influence  and  a  power  to  make  us  meet  for  the  inheritance. 

On  this  important  truth,  so  indispensable  to  secure  the  saving 
and  salutary  influence  of  the  other  truths  of  Christianity,  when 
known  and  believed,  we  shall  make  three  observations.     The  first 


232  serle's  christian  remembrancer. 

regards  the  kind  of  effort  that  should  be  made,  either  by  an  in- 
quirer or  a  Christian,  in  the  business  of  prosecuting  his  salvation. 
The  second  regards  the  nature  of  that  salvation.  And  the  third 
regards  the  power  of  the  truth,  when  summoned  into  the  mind's 
presence  by  an  act  of  recollection,  to  keep  it  in  that  right  train 
both  of  purpose  and  desire  which  prepares  and  carries  it  forward 
to  the  enjoyment  of  heaven. 

I.  With  regard  to  the  kind  of  effort  that  should  be  made  by  an 
inquirer,  he  does  not,  we  will  venture  to  say,  set  earnestly  out  in 
quest  of  salvation  without  its  coming  primarily  and  prominently 
into  his  notice,  that  he  is  saved  by  faith.  And  hence  very  often 
a  straining  of  the  mind  after  this  acquirement — an  anxious  en- 
deavor to  believe — a  repeated  attempt  to  grasp  that  truth,  by  the 
possession  of  which  it  is,  that  we  obtain  a  right  to  life  everlasting ; 
and  as  the  accompaniment  of  all  this,  a  frequent  work  of  inward 
search  and  contemplation,  to  try  if  that  principle  be  there,  on 
which  there  hinges  so  important  a  consummation  as  the  favor  of 
God,  and  the  forgiveness  of  all  trespasses.  Now  it  is  worth  the 
remarking,  on  this  subject,  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  forcing 
the  belief  of  the  mind  beyond  what  it  sees  of  proof  and  evidence. 
We  may  force  the  mind  to  attend  to  a  matter ;  or  we  may  force 
it  to  conceive  that  matter ;  or  we  may  force  it  to  persevere  in 
thinking  and  in  dwelling  upon  it.  But  beyond  the  light  of  evi- 
dence you  cannot  force  it  to  any  kind  of  belief  about  it.  Faith  is 
not  to  be  arrived  at  in  this  wray ;  and  we  can  no  more  command 
the  mind  to  see  that  to  be  truth  on  which  the  light  of  evidence 
does  not  shine,  than  we  can  command  the  eye  to  behold  the  sun 
through  a  dark  impalpable  cloud,  that  mantles  it  from  human  ob- 
servation. Should  a  mountain  intervene  between  our  eye  and 
some  enchanting  scene  that  lies  on  the  other  side  of  it,  it  is  not 
by  any  piercing  or  penetrative  effort  on  the  part  of  the  eye, 
through  this  solid  opaque  mass,  that  we  will  obtain  the  sight  after 
which  we  are  aspiring.  And  yet  there  is  a  way  of  obtaining  it. 
A  mere  effort  of  the  eye  will  not  do ;  but  the  effort  of  ascending 
the  mountain  will  do.  And,  in  like  manner,  a  mere  straining  of 
the  mind  after  any  doctrine,  with  a  view  to  apprehend  it,  will 
never,  without  the  light  of  evidence,  bring  that  doctrine  into  the 
discernment  of  the  mind's  eye.  But  such  is  the  proclaimed  im- 
portance of  belief,  as  carrying  in  it  an  escape  from  ruin  everlast- 
ing, and  a  translation  into  all  the  security  of  acceptance  with  God, 
that  to  the  acquisition  of  it  the  effort  of  an  inquirer  is  most  nat- 
urally bent :  and  he  is  apt  to  carry  this  effort  beyond  the  evi- 
dence ;  and  the  effort  to  behold  beyond  evidence  is  of  a  nature  so 
fruitless  and  fatiguing,  that  it  harasses  the  mind,  just  as  any  over- 
stretch does  toward  that  which,  after  all,  is  an  impossibility.  And 
yet  there  is  a  line  of  effort  that  is  productive.  There  is  a  path 
along  which  the  light  of  evidence  will  dawn,  and  that  which  is 
impossible  to  be  seen  without  it,  will  be  seen  by  it ;  and  that,  too, 


SERLE  S    CHRISTIAN    REMEMBRANCER.  233 

without  distortion  or  unnatural  violence  upon  the  faculties.  We 
are  bidden  seek  the  pearl  of  great  price,  and  there  must  be  a  way 
of  it.  It  is  quite  obvious,  and  not  at  all  impracticable,  to  read  the 
Bible  with  attention,  and  to  wait  upon  ordinances,  and  to  give 
vent  to  the  desirousness  of  our  hearts  in  prayer,  and  to  follow 
conscience  in  the  discharge  of  all  known  duties — and  the  truth 
which  is  unto  salvation,  and  by  the  knowing  and  believing  of 
which  we  acquire  everlasting  lifej  a  truth  that  never  can  be  seen 
while  an  opaque  and  impenetrable  shroud  is  upon  it,  will  at  length 
break  out  into  open  manifestation.  It  does  not  do  to  be  so  urged 
by  a  sense  of  the  necessity  of  faith,  as  to  try  the  impracticability 
of  making  faith  outrun  the  evidence.  But  it  does  well  to  be  at 
the  post,  and  along  the  path  of  inquiry  and  exertion,  where  it  is 
promised  that  the  light  of  this  evidence  will  be  made  to  shine  upon 
us.  If  we  keep  by  our  duties  and  our  Bibles,  like  the  apostles 
who  kept  by  Jerusalem  till  the  Holy  Ghost  was  poured  upon 
them,  there  is  not  one  honest  seeker  who  will  not,  in  time,  be  a 
sure  and  triumphant  finder.  And  we  ought  to  commit  ourselves 
in  confidence  to  this  course,  assured  of  the  prosperous  result  that 
must  come  out  of  it.  We  ought  not  to  be  discomposed  by  our 
anxieties  about  the  final  attainment.  Though  the  alternative  of 
our  heaven  or  hell  hang  upon  the  issues  of  our  seeking  to  be  jus- 
tified by  faith,  still  we  ought  not  to  try  and  toil  to  make  our  faith 
outrun  the  light  of  conviction.  It  should  be  our  great  encourage- 
ment, that  it  is  not  merely  he  who  has  found  the  Lord  that  is 
called  upon  to  rejoice,  but  that  it  is  said  by  the  Psalmist,  "  Let 
the  heart  of  them  rejoice  that  seek  the  Lord."  "  Ask  and  ye  shall 
receive :  seek  and  ye  shall  find :  knock  and  it  shall  be  opened 
unto  you." 

Let  us  now  conceive  that  the  truth  is  gotten — that  faith,  which 
has  been  called,  and  aptly  enough  too,  the  hand  of  the  mind,  has 
appropriated  and  brought  it  within  the  grasp  and  possession  of  a 
believer,  the  question  comes  to  be,  How  is  this  new  acquisition  to 
be  disposed  of?  We  may  be  sensible  how  often  truths  come  to 
be  known  and  believed  by  us,  and  how  some  of  them  perhaps 
have  died  away  from  our  memory,  and  never  been  recalled :  and 
yet  we  may  be  said  to  be  in  possession  of  them,  for  upon  their 
bare  mention  we  will  instantly  recognize  them  as  doctrines  we 
have  already  learned,  and  with  the  truth  of  which,  at  the  time 
that  we  attended  to  their  evidence,  we  were  abundantly  satisfied. 
Now,  is  it  by  such  a  possession  of  Christian  truth  that  we  will  se- 
cure a  part  in  the  Christian  salvation  ?  It  is  not.  It  is  not  by 
first  importing  it  into  our  conviction,  and  then  consigning  it  to 
some  by-corner  of  the  mind,  where  it  lies  in  a  state  of  oblivion 
and  dormancy— it  is  not  thus,  that  our  knowledge  of  God  and  of 
Jesus  Christ  becomes  life  everlasting.  The  truths  which  be  unto 
salvation  are  not  laid  past  like  the  forgotten  acquisitions  of  science 
or  scholarship.     And  we  are  wrong  if  we  think,  that  just  as  the 

30 


234  serle's  christian  remembrancer. 

title-deeds  of  an  earthly  house  in  possession  may  be  locked  up  in 
security,  and  never  looked  to  but  when  the  right  of  property  is 
questioned — so  our  creed,  with  all  its  articles,  may  be  laid  up  in 
the  depository  of  our  mind,  and  there  lie  in  deep  and  undisturbed 
repose,  till  our  right  of  entry  into  the  house  that  is  not  made  with 
hands,  and  is  eternal  in  the  heavens,  comes  under  examination, 
among  the  other  topics  of  the  great  day  of  inquiry.  We  do  not 
think  it  possible  that  the  essential  truths  of  the  Gospel  can  be  ac- 
tually believed,  without  being  afterwards  the  topic  of  daily,  and 
unceasing,  and  practical  recurrence.  But  even  though  they 
could,  they  would,  upon  such  an  event,  be  of  no  influence  towards 
the  salvation  of  the  believer.  The  apostle  tells  us  expressly,  if 
they  are  not  kept  in  memory  they  are  believed  in  vain.  By  the 
Gospel  we  are  saved,  not  if  we  merely  believe  it,  but  if  we  keep 
it  in  memory.  It  is  not  enough  that  it  have  been  once  acquiesced 
in  :  it  must  ever,  and  through  the  whole  futurity  of  our  earthly 
existence,  be  habitually  adverted  to.  It  is  not  enough  that  it  be 
sleeping  in  the  mind's  hidden  repository :  it  must  be  in  the  mind's 
eye.  It  must  be  kept  in  remembrance ;  and  that,  too,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  being  called  to  remembrance.  It  is  not  enough  that  it  be 
in  the  mind's  latent  custody :  it  must  be  in  constant  waiting,  as  it 
were,  for  being  summoned  into  the  mind's  presence — and  its  effi- 
cacy unto  salvation,  it  would  appear,  consists  not  in  the  mind 
knowing  it,  but  in  the  mind  thinking  of  it. 

This  will  be  better  illustrated  by  a  particular  truth.  One  of 
those  truths  to  which  the  apostle  alludes,  as  being  indispensable 
to  be  kept  in  memory,  in  order  to  be  of  any  efficacy,  is,  that  Christ 
died  for  our  sins.  It  is  not  enough  then,  it  would  appear,  simply 
to  have  believed  that  Christ  died  for  our  sins.  This  fact  must  ever 
and  anon  be  recalled  to  our  memory.  It  is  by  no  means  enough, 
that  we,  at  one  time,  were  sure  of  this  truth.  It  is  a  truth  that 
must  be  dwelt  upon.  It  is  not  to  be  thrown  aside  as  a  forgotten 
thing,  which  at  one  time  gave  entertainment  to  our  thoughts.  It 
must  live  in  our  daily  recollections.  It  is  not  enough  that  we  have 
taken  hold  of  this  dependence.  We  must  keep  hold  of  it :  nor 
does  faith  even  in  this  save  us,  unless  that  which  is  believed  be  the 
topic  of  ever-recurring  contemplation. 

For  this  purpose,  the  habit  of  a  great  and  continuous  effort  on 
the  part  of  the  human  mind  is  indispensable.  We  know  how  all 
the  truths  of  Christianity,  and  this  one  among  the  number,  are  apt 
to  slip  from  the  attention  ;  and  what  a  combat  with  the  tenden- 
cies of  nature  it  takes  to  retain  our  hold  of  them.  It  is  setting  us 
to  a  work  of  great  difficulty  and  great  strenuousness,  simply  to 
bid  us  keep  in  memory  the  truths  of  that  Gospel  by  which  we  are 
saved.  They  may  have  entered  our  mind  with  the  force  of  all- 
powerful  evidence — and  they  may  have  filled  it  with  a  sense  of 
their  supreme  importance — and  the}  may  have  ministered  in  the 
hour  of  silence  and  devotion,  an  influence  to  relieve,  and  to  com- 


serle's  christian  remembrancer.  235 

fort  and  to  elevate — and  yet  after  all,  will  we  find  it  a  mighty- 
struggle  with  the  infirmities  of  our  constitution,  to  keep  these 
truths  in  memory  all  the  day  long.  We  will  find,  that  among  the 
urgencies  of  this  world's  business,  the  one  and  simple  truth,  that 
Christ  died  for  our  sins,  will  take  its  flight  for  hours  together,  and 
never  once  be  presented  to  the  mind,  even  in  the  form  of  a  slight 
and  momentary  visitation.  To  be  ever  recurring  to  this  truth — 
to  give  it  an  hourly  place,  along  with  the  multitude  of  other 
thoughts  that  are  within  us — to  turn  it  into  a  matter  of  habitual 
occupation  for  that  mind,  the  property  of  which,  throughout  all 
the  moments  of  its  waking  existence,  is  to  be  ever  thinking — this 
is  an  enterprise  in  every  way  as  arduous  as  to  work  against  the 
current  of  nature.  It  is  not  laying  upon  us  a  task  that  is  either 
easy  or  insignificant,  when  we  are  told  to  keep  the  essentials  of 
the  Gospel  in  our  frequent  remembrance.  It  is  the  experience  of 
all  who  have  honestly  tried  it,  that  it  is  exceedingly  difficult — and 
yet,  so  far  from  a  matter  of  insignificance,  it  is  the  averment  of 
the  apostle,  that  if  we  keep  not  the  Gospel  in  memory,  we  will  not 
be  saved. 

We  know  it  to  be  a  work  of  difficulty,  for  a  man  overcome 
with  drowsiness,  io  keep  his  eyes  open.  Suppose  that  by  so  doing, 
he  is  only  made  to  look  on  a  set  of  of  objects  which  offend  and 
disturb  him,  we  may  readily  conceive  how  gladly,  in  these  cir- 
cumstances, he  will  make  his  escape  from  the  hateful  imagery 
which  surrounds  him,  by  repairing  to  the  sweet  oblivion  of  nature. 
But,  on  the  other  hand,  should  his  eyes,  when  open,  have  a  scene 
of  loveliness  before  them,  by  which  the  soul  is  regaled,  and  bright- 
ened into  sensations  that  are  every  way  agreeable,  then,  though 
an  effort  be  necessary  to  keep  himself  awake,  yet  there  is  a  better 
chance  of  the  effort  being  actually  made.  There  will  be  a  re- 
ward and  an  enjoyment  to  go  along  with  it ;  and  the  man,  in  these 
new  circumstances,  would  both  be  in  a  state  of  pleasurable  feel- 
ing, and,  at  the  same  time,  in  a  constant  struggle  to  maintain  his 
wakefulness.  However  delightful  the  prospect  that  is  before  him, 
this  will  not  supersede  the  necessity  of  a  strenuous  endeavor  to 
keep  himself  in  the  posture  of  observation.  And  so  of  the  mind's 
eye,  in  the  mental  scenery  that  is  before  it.  Under  all  the  stir, 
and  activity,  and  delight  of  nature's  movements,  may  the  soul  be 
profoundly  immersed  in  the  slumbers  of  nature's  carnality.  It 
may  be  spiritually  asleep,  even  when  busily  engaged  with  the 
passing  insignificant  dreams  of  our  present  world.  It  is  indeed  a 
great  transition  on  every  son  and  daughter  of  our  species  when 
he  becomes  awake  to  the  realities  of  faith,  and  is  made  to  perceive 
the  existence  and  the  weight  of  things  invisible.  But  if  all  he  is 
made  thus  to  perceive,  be  the  dark  and  menacing  imagery  of  ter- 
ror— if  he  see  nothing  but  God's  holiness  on  the  one  hand,  and  his 
own  sinfulness  on  the  other — if  on  looking  to  the  sanctuary  above, 
he  see  nothing  but  the  fire  of  a  devouring  jealousy  in  readiness  to 


236  serle's  christian  remembrancer. 

go  forth  over  the  whole  region  of  disloyalty  to  heaven's  law ; 
and,  on  looking  to  himself,  he  see  that  he  is  within  the  limits  of 
the  territory  of  guilt,  and  liable  to  the  doom  that  is  in  reserve  for 
it,  we  may  perceive  the  readiness  with  which  many  a  half-awak- 
ened sinner  will  try  to  make  his  escape  from  the  pain  and  the 
agitation  of  such  frightful  contemplations  as  these  ;  and  how  gladly 
he  will  cradle  his  soul  back  again  into  its  old  insensibility,  and  find 
a  refuge  from  the  whole  alarm  of  faithful  sermons,  and  arousing 
providences,  and  constantly  recurring  deaths  in  the  circle  of  his 
much-loved  acquaintanceship,  in  the  forgetfulness  of  a  nature, 
which,  by  its  own  drowsiness,  may  be  so  easily  lulled  into  a  state 
of  unconcern  about  these  things.  The  man  will  not,  if  he  can  help 
it,  make  an  effort  to  keep  himself  awake,  if  all  he  get  by  it  is  a 
spectacle  of  pain :  if  he  get  a  spectacle  of  pleasure  by  it,  he  may 
be  prevailed  upon.  Still,  even  in  this  latter  case,  an  effort  would 
be  necessary  :  even  after  the  dread  representation  of  the  law  is 
succeeded  by  the  bright  and  cheering  representation  of  the  Gospel, 
it  will  still  be  like  the  offering  of  a  beauteous  and  inviting  spec- 
tacle to  the  eyes  of  a  man  who  is  like  to  be  overcome  with  drowsi- 
ness. There  must  be  a  sustained  endeavor  on  his  part  to  keep 
himself  awake.  He  will  ever  and  anon  be  relapsing  into  the 
slumbers  of  worldly  and  alienated  nature,  if  he  do  not  put  forth 
a  strenuousness  on  the  object  of  keeping  the  truths  of  the  Gospel 
in  his  memory.  So  long  as  he  is  encompassed  with  a  vile  body 
of  sin  and  of  infirmity,  which  will  at  length  be  pulverized  by 
death,  and  transformed  at  the  resurrection,  there  will  be  a  strug- 
gle with  the  sleeping  propensities  that  will  still  be  about  him 
towards  the  things  that  are  unseen  and  spiritual.  Great  will  be 
his  pleasure,  even  here,  in  the  objects  of  his  believing  contempla- 
tion ;  but  great  also  must  be  the  effort  of  painful  and  unceasing 
diligence  to  support  the  contemplation  itself.  He  will  just  be  like 
a  drowsy  spectator,  with  a  fine  and  fascinating  landscape  before 
him,  the  charm  of  which  he  would  like  to  prolong  to  the  utter- 
most. And  however  engaging  the  prospect  which  the  Gospel  sets 
before  him,  however  cheering  the  promises,  however  effectually  the 
truth  that  Christ  died  for  our  sins,  chases  away  all  the  fears  of  the 
law,  when  it  proclaims,  that  for  every  sin  that  the  creature  has 
dared  to  perpetrate,  a  holy  and  an  avenging  God  must  be  satisfied ; 
still  we  mistake  it,  if  we  think  that  no  effort  on  the  part  of  the 
mind  is  necessary  to  detain  within  the  reach  of  its  vision  this 
bright  and  beautiful  representation.  Though  called  to  rejoice  in 
the  Lord  alway,  yet  there  must  be  a  putting  forth  of  strength  and 
of  vigilance  in  the  work  of  looking  unto  Jesus,  and  of  considering 
Him  who  is  the  Apostle  and  High  Priest  of  our  profession. 

II.  The  nature  of  that  salvation  which  the  Gospel  reveals,  has 
been  so  fully  exhibited  by  Mr.  Serle,  in  the  First  Part  of  this 
excellent  Treatise,  as  to  render  any  lengthened  exposition  of  it  in 
this  place  unnecessary.  But  it  is  worthy  of  remark,  that,  perhaps, 


serle's  christian  remembrancer.  237 

there  is  not  a  passage  in  the  Bible  more  fitted  to  instruct  us  in 
what  the  salvation  of  Christianity  really  is,  than  the  expression 
of  the  apostle,  to  which  we  have  so  frequently  adverted,  that  un- 
less we  keep  the  truths  of  the  Gospel  in  memory,  we  have  believed 
in  vain.  The  ordinary  conception  upon  the  subject  is,  that  it  is  a 
rescue  from  hell,  with  a  right  of  entry  and  admittance  into 
heaven.  And  our  faith  is  supposed  to  be  our  title-deed  ;  a  pass- 
port of  conveyance,  upon  the  examination  of  which  we  are  car- 
ried in  the  train  of  our  Saviour  and  our  Judge  to  paradise  ;  a 
thing  we  fear,  apprehended  by  many  to  be  of  no  other  use  than 
merely  to  be  retained  in  a  sort  of  secure  keeping ;  that,  when 
found  in  our  possession  on  the  last  day,  it  may  then  be  sustained 
as  our  claim  to  the  promised  inheritance  of  glory.  Now  the 
apostle  tells  us,  that  were  it  possible  to  believe  the  truth  without 
being  mindful  of  the  truth,  the  belief  is  in  vain :  in  other  words, 
its  main  use  to  salvation  does  not  lie  in  the  possession  of  it  then, 
but  in  the  influence  and  operation  of  it  now.  When  placed  be- 
fore the  judgment-seat  of  Christ,  it  will  be  known  whether  we  are 
of  the  faith ;  and  there  is  no  doubt  that  this  faith  will  open  the 
door  of  heaven's  kingdom  to  all  who  possess  it.  But,  let  it  well 
be  understood,  that  this  is  not  the  alone,  nor  even  the  most  im- 
portant function  of  faith.  It  does  not  lie  in  useless  reserve  on  this 
side  of  time,  till  the  occasion  comes  round,  when  on  the  other  side 
of  time,  it  will  vest  us  with  a  right  of  admittance  into  heaven.  Its 
main  operation  is  our  good  here,  by  the  thing  which  has  been  be- 
lieved being  also  the  thing  that  is  remembered.  Were  its  only  use 
to  confer  a  title  upon  us,  it  might  lie  in  store  like  an  old  charter, 
forgotten  for  years,  but  securing  its  purpose  whenever  there  is  a 
call  for  its  production.  But  it  has  another  use  besides  conferring 
a  title  :  it  confers  a  character.  It  does  something  more  than 
cause  the  place  to  be  made  ready  for  us :  it  causes  us  to  be  made 
ready  for  the  place.  We  believe  in  vain  unless  we  remember: 
but  it  is  the  habitual  advertency  of  the  mind  to  the  great  truths  of 
the  Gospel — it  is  the  unceasing  recurrence  of  its  thoughts  to  them 
— it  is  the  practice  of  ever  and  anon  calling  them  to  considera- 
tion, and  dwelling  upon  them  from  one  day,  and  from  one  hour  to 
another — it  is  this  which  appears  to  stamp  upon  faith  its  main  effi- 
cacy towards  salvation.  And  why?  Because  salvation  lies  in 
deliverance  from  sin,  as  well  as  from  punishment — because  sal- 
vation consists  in  being  introduced  to  the  character  of  heaven, 
as  well  as  into  heaven  itself — because  by  salvation  there  is  not 
merely  the  prospect  of  another  habitation,  but  there  is  the  work- 
ing of  another  principle  ;  and  the  way  in  which  the  memory  must 
be  added  to  faith,  else  we  have  believed  in  vain,  is,  that  the  mem- 
ory, by  calling  the  truths  of  the  Gospel  into  the  mind's  presence, 
reiterates  upon  the  mind  a  moral  and  a  sanctifying  influence, 
which  would  be  altogether  unfelt  if  these  truths  were  forgotten. 
It  is  because  the  memory  perpetuates  the  flame  which  was  first 


238  serle's  christian  remembrancer. 

lighted  by  the  faith  of  Christianity — it  is  because  if  faith  work  by 
love,  then  the  memory  is  necessary  to  the  alimenting  of  this  holy 
affection  ;  and  if  it  be  one  use  of  faith  to  justify  the  sinner  in  the 
sight  of  God,  a  no  less  important  use  of  faith  is,  that  through  a 
habitual  remembrance  of  the  truths  that  are  the  objects  of  it,  the 
sinner  is  brought  under  the  constant  operation  of  a  moral  influ- 
ence, by  which  he  is  sanctified  and.  made  meet  for  the  inheritance. 
III.  The  truths  to  which  the  apostle  adverts,  when  he  assures 
us,  that  unless  we  keep  them  in  memory  we  have  believed  in  vain, 
are,  that  Christ  died  for  our  sins,  according  to  the  Scriptures  ;  and 
that,  after  He  was  buried,  He  rose  again.  Let  the  first  truth  be 
habitually  present  to  the  mind,  and  the  mind  will  feel  itself  habit- 
ually lightened  of  the  whole  terror  and  bondage  of  legality. 
That  weight  of  overhanging  despair,  which,  in  fact,  represses 
every  attempt  at  obedience,  by  making  it  altogether  hopeless,  will 
be  taken  off  from  the  wearied  spirit,  and  it  will  break  forth  with 
the  full  play  of  its  emancipated  powers  on  the  free  and  open 
space  of  reconciliation.  There  is  nothing  that  so  chains  the 
inactivity  of  a  human  being  as  hopelessness.  There  is  nothing 
that  so  paralyzes  him,  as  the  undefined,  but  haunting  insecurity 
and  terror,  which  he  cannot  shake  away.  We  must  be  sensible 
of  the  new  spring  that  is  given  to  the  energies  of  him  who  is 
overwhelmed  with  debt,  when  he  obtains  his  discharge.  So  long 
as  he  felt  that  all  was  irrecoverable  he  did  nothing  ;  but  when  he 
gets  his  enlargement,  he  runs  with  the  alacrity  of  a  new-acquired 
freedom  in  the  path  of  industry.  Now,  in  the  spiritual  life,  it  is 
this  very  enlargement  which  gives  rise  to  this  very  activity.  It 
is  the  glad  tidings  of  a  release,  by  Him  who  hath  paid  the  ransom 
of  our  iniquities,  that  sets  our  feet  in  a  sure  place — that  opens  up 
to  us  a  career  of  new  obedience — that  levels  the  barrier  which 
keeps  us  without  hope,  and  therefore  without  God  in  the  world — 
that  places  us,  as  it  were,  in  a  free  and  unobstructed  avenue,  in 
which,  by  every  step  that  we  advance  upon  it,  we  draw  nearer 
to  that  Jerusalem  above,  the  gates  of  which  are  now  thrown  open 
to  receive  us.  The  real  effect  of  the  doctrine  of  Jesus  Christ  and 
Him  crucified,  upon  the  believer,  is  utterly  the  reverse  of  this 
world's  imagination  upon  the  subject.  It  does  not  beget  the  delu- 
sion in  his  mind  of  an  impunity  for  sinning ;  but  it  chases  away 
that  heavy  soporific  from  his  moral  faculties,  which  the  sense  of 
a  broken  law,  when  unaccompanied  by  the  faith  of  an  offered 
Gospel,  will  ever  minister  to  the  heart ;  that  let  him  struggle  as  he 
may,  and  keep  as  strenuously  from  sinning  as  he  may,  it  will  be 
of  no  use  to  him.  The  truth  that  Christ  died  for  our  sins,  so  far 
from  a  soporific,  is  a  stimulus  to  our  obedience  ;  and  it  is  when 
this  truth  enters  with  power  into  the  heart,  that  the  believer  can 
take  up  the  language  of  the  Psalmist  and  say,  "  Thou  hast  en- 
larged my  heart,  and  I  will  now  run  in  the  way  of  thy  testimo- 
nies." ' 


serle's  christian  remembrancer.  239 

But  if  such  be  the  influence  of  this  truth  when  present  to  the 
mind,  it  must,  in  order  to  have  a  habitual  influence,  be  habitually 
present.  In  order  to  work  upon  the  habit  and  character  of  the 
soul,  it  must  ever  be  offering  itself  to  the  notice,  and  ever  reiter- 
ating the  impulse  it  is  fitted  to  give  to  all  the  feelings,  and  to  all 
the  faculties.  We  know  not  a  single  doctrine,  which  by  its  per- 
petual recurrence  to  the  thoughts,  is  more  fitted  to  keep  the  mind 
in  a  right  state  for  obedience.  Now,  in  order  that  the  great  work 
of  sanctification  go  forward,  the  mind  should  be  constantly  in  this 
state.  Let  this  truth  be  expunged,  and  for  all  the  purposes  of 
spiritual  conformity  to  the  will  of  God,  the  whole  man  will  go 
into  unhingement.  But  let  this  truth  be  lighted  up  in  the  soul — 
let  it  be  kept  shining  at  all  times  within  its  receptacles — let  the 
trust  never  cease  to  lean  upon  it,  and  the  memory  never  cease  to 
recall  it,  and  the  hope  never  cease  to  dwell  upon  it — let  it  only 
show  itself  among  the  crowd  of  this  world's  turmoils  and  anxie- 
ties— and  whatever  the  urgencies  be,  which  harass  and  beset  a 
man  on  the  path  of  his  daily  history,  let  such  be  the  habit  of  his 
mind,  that  in  obedience  to  this  truth,  the  thought  is  present  with 
him  of  his  main  chance  being  secured ;  the  animating  sense  of 
this  will  bear  him  on  in  triumph  through  manifold  agitations :  and 
when  like  to  sink  and  give  way  under  the  pressure  of  this  world's 
weariness,  and  this  world's  distraction,  this  will  come  in  aid  of 
his  faltering  spirit,  and  carry  him  in  sacredness,  and  in  safety  to 
his  final  landing-place. 

We  have  not  room  to  expatiate  on  the  influence  of  the  other 
truth,  that  Christ  rose  again — that  He  eyes  every  disciple  from 
that  summit  of  observation  to  which  He  has  been  exalted — that 
the  sin  for  which  He  died  He  holds  in  irreconcilable  hatred — and 
that  the  purpose  of  His  mediatorship  was  not  merely  to  atone  for 
its  guilt,  but  utterly  to  root  out  its  existence  and  its  power  from 
the  hearts  of  all  who  believe  in  Him.  The  Christian  who  is 
haunted  at  all  hours  of  the  day  by  this  sentiment,  will  feel  that  to 
sin  is  to  thwart  the  purpose  upon  which  his  Saviour's  heart  is  set, 
and  to  crucify  Him  afresh.  This,  however,  to  be  kept  in  power, 
must  be  kept  in  memory.  And  as  with  the  former  truth,  if  we 
carry  it  about  with  us  at  all  times,  we  will  walk  before  God  with- 
out fear,  so  with  it  and  the  latter  truth  put  together,  if  both  are 
carried  about  with  us,  will  we  also  walk  before  him  in  righteous- 
ness, and  in  holiness,  all  the  days  of  our  lives. 

But  it  ought  to  be  remembered,  that  if  we  are  not  mindful  of 
these  truths,  we  positively  do  not  believe  them.  If  we  have  not 
the  memory,  it  is  a  clear  evidence  that  we  have  not  the  faith.  It 
is  impossible  but  the  mind  must  be  always  recurring  to  matters  in 
which  it  has  a  great  personal  interest,  if  it  only  have  a  sense  of 
their  reality.  We  should  try  ourselves  by  this  test,  and  be  as- 
sured, that  if  we  are  not  going  on  unto  perfection  through  the 
constant  and  practical  influence  of  the  great  doctrines  of  Christi- 


240  serle's  christian  remembrancer. 

anity  upon  our  heart,  we  need  yet  to  learn  what  be  the  first  prin- 
ciples of  the  oracles  of  God. 

It  is  from  these  considerations  that  we  estimate  so  highly  the 
following  valuable  Treatise  of  Mr.  Serle,  "  The  Christian  Re- 
memrrancer,"  in  which  the  great  and  essential  truths  of  Christi- 
anity are  exhibited  in  a  luminous  and  practical  manner.  But,  it 
is  not  merely  those  more  essential  truths  of  the  Gospel  which  form 
the  foundation  of  a  sinner's  hope,  that  he  brings  to  our  remem- 
brance ;  the  operative  nature  of  these  truths,  as  inwardly  expe- 
rienced by  the  believer,  in  the  formation  of  the  spiritual  life — the 
sanctifying  influence  of  Christian  truth  over  the  affections  and 
character  of  the  believer — the  whole  preceptive  code  of  social 
and  relative  duties  to  which,  as  members  of  society,  Christianity 
requires  our  obedience — in  fine,  the  whole  Christian  system  of 
doctrines  and  duties  is  presented  in  a  plain  and  practical  manner, 
well  fitted  to  assist  the  understanding  in  attaining  a  correct  and 
intimate  acquaintance  with  the  truths  of  Christianity ;  while  the 
brief,  but  distinct  and  impressive  form  in  which  they  are  presented, 
is  no  less  fitted  to  assist  the  memory  in  its  recollection  of  them. 
The  Treatise,  as  the  Author  remarks,  is  rather  intended  for  hints 
to  carry  on  the  mind  to  farther  meditations,  than  for  full  and  ex- 
act meditations  themselves ;  and  it  is  brought  into  narrow  com- 
pass, that  the  serious  Christian  may  find  it  a  little  Remembrancer, 
with  many  short  errands  to  his  heart.  And  as  the  reader,  from 
our  previous  observations,  will  not  fail  to  remark,  that  it  is  not 
the  mere  knowledge  or  possession  of  any  truth,  but  the  constant 
remembrance  of  it,  which  can  give  it  an  operative  influence  over 
the  mind,  and  make  it  issue  in  those  practical  results  which  such 
a  truth  is  fitted  to  produce — so,  however  important  those  precious 
truths  are  which  are  so  clearly  and  impressively  presented  in  the 
following  Treatise,  yet  they  can  have  no  saving  or  salutary  influ- 
ence, without  being  kept  in  constant  remembrance. 

If  it  have  not  been  our  habit  hitherto  to  call  to  mind  the  essen- 
tial truths  of  the  Gospel,  we  ought  to  begin  now,  and  by  reason 
of  use  we  will  be  sure  to  make  progress  in  it.  Whether  it  be  the 
work  of  an  artisan,  or  the  work  of  a  merchant,  there  is  room  for 
this  thought  in  short  and  frequent  intervals,  that  Christ  died  for 
our  sins ;  and  we  are  confident  that,  if  we  are  believers,  the 
thought  will  leave  a  pacifying  and  a  holy  influence  behind  it. 
God  has  proclaimed  a  connection  between  the  presence  of  Gospel 
truth  to  the  understanding,  and  the  power  of  Gospel  affections  over 
that  heart.  He  has  told  us  that  faith  worketh  by  love ;  and  we, 
by  constantly  recurring  to  the  great  objects  of  faith,  are  putting 
that  very  instrument  into  operation  by  which  God  sanctifies  all 
those  who  have  received  his  testimony  in  behalf  of  Jesus  Christ 
his  Son. 

If  we  receive  the  truths  of  Christianity,  we  are  not  merely  put 
in  possession  of  them  as  title-deeds  to  a  blessed  inheritance  above, 


SERLE  S    CHRISTIAN    REMEMBRANCER.  241 

to  be  presented  after  death  for  our  entrance  into  heaven :  they  are 
also  instruments  to  be  made  use  of  before  death,  for  graving  upon 
us,  as  it  were,  the  character  of  heaven.  And  when  the  day  of 
judgment  comes,  it  is  not  by  a  direct  inspection  of  the  title-deeds 
that  our  right  to  heaven  will  be  ascertained ;  it  is  by  the  inspec- 
tion of  that  which  has  been  engraven  by  the  truths  of  Christianity, 
operating  as  so  many  instruments  upon  our  character.  Christ  will 
look  to  the  inscription  that  has  been  made  upon  our  hearts  and 
lives :  so,  while  nothing  can  be  more  true,  than  that  it  is  by  faith 
we  are  justified,  it  is  in  fullest  harmony  with  this  truth,  that  it  is 
by  works  we  are  judged. 


31 


INTRODUCTORY  ESSAY 

TO   THE 

CHRISTIAN'S    GREAT   INTEREST. 

IN    TWO   PARTS. 

BY  THE  REV.  WILLIAM  GUTHRIE. 


There  are  few  subjects  or  exercises  more  deeply  important  to 
professing  Christians,  than  that  which  forms  the  principal  topic  in 
the  following  admirable  Treatise — the  work  of  self-examination. 
But  self-examination  is  a  work  of  great  difficulty,  and  is  accord- 
ingly shrunk  from,  or  altogether  declined  by  the  great  body  of 
professing  Christians.  It  is  more  the  habitual  style  of  the  mind's 
contemplations  to  look  at  that  which  is  without,  than  at  that  which 
is  within — and  it  is  far  easier  to  read  the  epistles  of  the  written 
Record,  than  to  read  the  tablet  of  one's  own  heart,  and  so  to  as- 
certain whether  it  be  indeed  a  living  epistle  of  Christ  Jesus  our 
Lord.  There  is  something  so  shadowy  and  evanescent  in  the 
phases  of  the  human  spirit — such  a  want  of  the  distinct  and  of  the 
tangible,  in  its  various  characteristics — such  a  turmoil,  and  con- 
fusion, and  apparent  incoherence  in  the  rapid  succession  of  those 
thoughts,  and  impulses,  and  emotions,  which  find  their  way  through 
the  avenues  of  the  inner  man — that  men,  as  if  lost  in  the  mazes  of 
a  labyrinth,  deem  the  world  which  is  within  to  be  the  most  hope- 
less and  impracticable  of  all  mysteries — nor  in  the  whole  range  of 
their  varied  speculations,  do  they  meet  with  that  which  more  baf- 
fles their  endeavors  to  seize  upon,  than  the  busy  principle  that  is 
lodged  within  them,  and  has  taken  up  its  residence  in  the  familiar 
intimacies  of  their  own  bosom. 

The  difficulty  of  knowing  our  own  heart  is  much  enhanced,  if 
we  are  in  quest  of  some  character  or  some  lineament  which  is  but 
faintly  engraven  thereupon.  When  the  thing  that  we  are  seeking 
for  is  so  very  dim,  or  so  very  minute,  as  to  be  almost  indiscernible, 
this  makes  it  a  far  more  fatiguing  exercise — and,  it  may  be,  an  al- 
together fruitless  one.  Should  then  the  features  of  our  personal 
Christianity  be  yet  slightly  or  obscurely  formed,  it  will  need  a 


CHRISTIAN  S    GREAT    INTEREST.  243 

more  intense  and  laborious  scrutiny  ere  we  can  possibly  recog- 
nize them.  Should  there  be  a  languor  in  our  love  to  God — should 
there  be  a  frailty  in  our  purposes  of  obedience — should  there  be 
a  trembling  indecision  of  principle,  and  the  weakness  or  the  waver- 
ing of  a  mind  that  is  scarcely  made  up  on  the  question  of  a  pref- 
erence for  time  or  for  eternity,  let  us  not  marvel,  though  all  dis- 
guised as  these  seeds  and  elements  of  regeneration  within  us  may 
be,  amid  the  vigorous  struggles  of  the  old  man,  and  the  remaining 
urgencies  of  a  nature  which  will  not  receive  its  death-blow  but 
with  the  same  stroke  that  brings  our  bodies  to  the  dust — let  us  not 
marvel,  if  in  these  circumstances  the  hardships  of  the  search  should 
deter  many  from  undertaking  it — and  though  after  months,  or 
even  years  of  earnestness  in  religion,  the  disciple  may  still  be 
in  ignorance  of  himself,  as  if  blindfolded  from  the  view  of  his 
own  character;  or,  if  arrested  at  the  threshold  by  a  sense  of  its 
many  difficulties,  the  work  of  self-examination  has  not  yet  been 
entered  on. 

It  is  thus  that  the  dark  and  unsearchable  nature  of  the  subject 
operates  insensibly  but  powerfully  as  a  restraint  on  self-examina- 
tion— and  certainly  there  would  be  encouragement  felt  to  begin 
this  exercise,  were  it  made  to  appear  in  the  light  of  a  more  prac- 
ticable exercise,  that  could  really  and  successfully  be  gone  through. 
It  is  just  as  if  set  upon  the  task  of  searching  for  some  minute  arti- 
cle on  the  floor  of  an  apartment,  of  which  the  windows  had  been 
partially  closed — a  weary  and  a  hopeless  undertaking,  till  the  sun 
has  fully  risen,  and  the  shutters  have  been  altogether  unfolded, 
and  the  greatest  possible  supply  of  light  has  been  admitted  into 
the  room.  Then  the  search  might  be  entered  upon  with  vigor, 
and  just  because  now  it  could  be  entered  upon  with  the  alacrity 
of  a  comfortable  expectation.  The  work  is  less  repulsive,  be- 
cause easier — and  now  might  the  whole  surface  of  this  trial  for  a 
discovery  be  patiently  explored,  just  because  now  a  greater  visi- 
bility had  been  poured  over  it. 

This  leads  to  a  remark,  which  though  a  mere  preliminary  to  the 
subject  of  self-examination,  we  nevertheless  deem  to  be  one  of 
great  practical  importance.  We  think  that  however  inscrutable 
at  this  moment  our  mind  may  be,  and  however  faintly  the  marks 
and  the  characteristics  of  our  Christianity  are  delineated  there- 
upon, yet  that  even  now  the  inward  survey  ought  to  be  commenced, 
and  renewed  at  frequent  intervals,  and  daily  persevered  in.  But, 
meanwhile,  and  to  facilitate  the  search,  we  should  do  the  very 
thing  that  is  done  in  the  case  of  a  dark  apartment.  There  should 
be  as  much  light  as  possible  thrown  upon  the  subject  from  with- 
out. If  the  lineaments  of  grace  within  us  be  faint,  that  ought 
instantly  to  be  done  which  might  have  the  effect  of  brightening 
them  into  a  more  lucid  distinctness,  and  so  making  the  work  of 
discovery  easier  than  before.  If  the  love,  and  the  joy,  and  the 
grateful  devotedness  to  his  Saviour's  will,  wherewith  the  heart  of 


244  christian's  great  interest.  ■ 

a  believer  is  animated,  be  hardly  discernible  in  his  efforts  to  as- 
certain them,  this  is  the  very  reason  why  all  those  direct  expe- 
dients should  forthwith  be  resorted  to  for  stirring  up  the  love,  and. 
for  exciting  the  joy,  and  for  fixing  in  the  bosom  that  grateful  de- 
votedness  which  he  is  now  going  so  fruitlessly  in  quest  of,  and 
which,  if  they  exist  at  all,  are  so  shrunken  in  magnitude,  or  so  en- 
veloped in  their  own  dimness,  that  they  have  hitherto  eluded  all 
his  endeavors  to  seek  after  them,  if  haply  he  may  find  them. 
Now  it  is  not  by  continuing  to  pore  inwardly  that  we  will  shed  a 
greater  lustre  over  the  tablet  of  our  own  character,  any  more  than 
we  can  enlighten  the  room  in  which  we  sit  by  the  straining  of  our 
eyes  towards  the  various  articles  which  are  therein  distributed.  In 
the  one  case,  we  take  help  from  the  window,  and  through  it  from 
the  sun  of  nature — and  this  not  to  supersede  the  proposed  investi- 
gation on  our  part,  but  altogether  to  aid  and  encourage  us  in  that 
investigation.  And  in  the  other  case,  that  the  eye  of  the  mind 
may  look  with  advantage  upon  itself  inwardly,  should  it  often  look 
outwardly  to  those  luminaries  which  are  suspended  from  the  can- 
opy of  that  revelation  which  is  from  above — we  should  throw 
widely  open  the  portal  of  faith,  and  this  is  the  way  by  which  light 
is  admitted  into  the  chambers  of  experience — in  defect  of  a  mani- 
fest love,  and  a  manifest  loyalty,  and  a  manifest  sacredness  of 
heart,  which  we  have  been  seeking  for  in  vain  amongst  the  ambi- 
guities of  the  inner  man,  we  should  expose  the  whole  of  this  mys- 
terious territory  to  the  influences  of  the  Sun  of  righteousness,  and 
this  is  done  by  gazing  upon  him  with  a  believer's  eye.  It  is  by 
regarding  the  love  wherewith  God  in  Christ  hath  loved  us,  that 
the  before  cold  and  sluggish  heart  is  roused  into  the  respondency 
of  love  back  again.  That  the  work  of  reading  be  made  more 
easy,  the  character  must  be  made  more  legible.  That  Christian- 
ity be  clearly  reflected  from  our  own  bosom,  all  must  be  laid  open 
to  the  Christianity  of  the  Record.  If  we  derive  no  good  from  the 
work  of  self-examination,  because  we  find  that  all  is  confusion  and 
mistiness  within,  then  let  us  go  forth  upon  the  truths  which  are 
without,  and  these  will  pour  a  flood  of  light  into  all  the  mazes  and 
intricacies  of  the  soul,  and,  at  length,  render  that  work  easy, 
which  before  was  impracticable.  No  doubt,  it  is  by  looking  in- 
wardly that  we  discover  what  is  in  the  mind — but  it  is  by  looking 
outwardly  that  we  so  brighten  and  bring  out  its  characteristics, 
as  to  make  these  discernible.  The  gratitude  that  was  before  un- 
felt,  because  it  lay  dormant,  let  us  awaken  it  by  the  sight  of  Him 
who  was  lifted  upon  the  cross  for  our  offences,  and  then  will  it 
meet  the  observation.  The  filial  affection  for  our  Father  in  hea- 
ven, which  before  was  dead,  let  us  quicken  it  into  a  felt  and  gracious 
sensibility,  by  looking  unto  Him  in  His  revealed  attitude  of  gra- 
ciousness,  and  at  our  next  exercise  of  self-inspection,  we  will  be 
sure  to  find  it.  To  revive  the  power  of  a  life  that  is  to  come,  which 
the  despair  of  guilt  Imd  utterly  extinguished  in  the  soul,  let  us  cast 


CHRISTIAN  S    GREAT    INTEREST.  245 

our  believing  regard  on  the  promises  of  the  Gospel — and  this  will 
set  it  up  again,  and  then  will  we  more  readily  ascertain,  that  our 
happiness  in  time  is  less  dear  to  us  than  our  hopes  for  eternity. 
It  is  thus  that  by  the  contemplation  of  that  which  is  without,  we 
brighten  the  consciousness  of  that  which  is  within — and  the  more 
manifest  the  things  of  revelation  are  to  the  eye  of  faith,  the  more 
manifest  will  the  things  of  experience  be  to  the  eye  of  conscience 
— and  the  more  distinctly  we  can  view  the  epistles  of  Christ  in 
the  written  Record,  the  more  discernible  will  its  counterpart  be 
in  that  epistle  which  is  written  not  with  pen  and  ink,  but  by  the 
Spirit  of  God,  on  the  fleshly  tablets  of  our  own  heart.  And  so 
the  work  of  faith,  instead  of  being  proposed  by  us  as  a  substitute, 
we  should  propose  as  the  readiest  help,  and  far  the  best  prepara- 
tive for  the  work  of  self-examination. 

It  were  well,  if  thus  we  could  compose  the  jealousy  of  those 
who  deem  it  legal  to  go  in  quest  of  evidence — but  better  still,  if 
we  could  guide  the  practice  of  those  with  whom  the  business  of 
salvation  forms  a  practical  and  not  a  merely  theoretical  or  specu- 
lative question. 

And  first,  we  would  say  to  them,  that  so  far  from  setting  faith 
aside  by  the  work  of  self-examination,  we  hold  that  it  is  the  former 
which  supplies  the  latter  with  all  its  materials,  and  sheds  that  light 
over  them  which  makes  them  visible  to  the  eye  of  consciousness. 
Were  there  no  faith,  there  would  be  no  fruits  to  inquire  after — 
and  it  were  utterly  in  vain  to  go  a  seeking  where  there  was  abso- 
lutely nothing  to  find.  To  a  sinner  in  distress,  we  unfold  the  par- 
don of  the  Gospel  ;  and  we  bid  him  look  unto  Jesus  that  he  may 
rejoice.  We  surely  could  not  say  less  than  this  to  an  inquirer  in 
darkness,  even  though  it  be  a  darkness  that  has  gathered  and 
rests  over  the  tablet  of  his  own  character,  and  hides  from  his  own 
view  all  that  is  good  and  gracious  thereupon.  Should  the  eye  fail 
of  its  discernment  when  turned  inwardly  upon  the  evidences,  we 
should  bid  it  turn  outwardly  upon  the  promises,  and  this  is  the 
way  to  bring  down  a  clear  and  satisfying  light  upon  the  soul. 
Just  as  in  some  minute  and  difficult  search  over  the  floor  of  an 
apartment,  we  throw  open  all  its  windows  to  the  sun  of  nature, 
so  we  ought,  by  faith,  to  throw  open  all  the  chambers  of  the  inner 
man  to  the  light  of  the  Sun  of  Righteousness.  They  are  the 
truths  that  be  without,  which  give  rise  to  the  traces  of  a  spiritual 
workmanship  within — and  the  indistinctness  of  the  latter  is  just 
the  reason  why  the  soul  should  be  ever  aiming  by  attention  and  be- 
lief at  a  communication  with  the  former.  When  self-examination  is 
at  a  loss  to  read  the  characters  which  are  written  upon  the  heart, 
it  is  faith  alone  which  can  make  the  inscription  more  legible — and 
never  will  man  get  acquainted  with  the  home  of  his  own  bosom, 
but  by  constant  supplies  of  light  and  influence  from  abroad.  If 
we  feel,  then,  an  outset  of  difficulty,  in  the  work  of  self-examina- 
tion, let  us  go  anew  to  the  fountain-head  of  revelation,  and  there 


246  christian's  great  interest. 

warm,  into  a  sensibility  that  may  be  felt,  the  cold  and  the  faded 
lineaments  of  that  image  which  it  is  the  genuine  tendency  of  the 
truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus  to  impress  upon  the  soul.  That  we  may 
prosper  when  we  examine  ourselves,  whether  we  are  in  the  faith, 
we  should  have  the  faith.  We  should  keep  it  in  daily  and  habitual 
exercise,  and  this  will  strengthen  it.  If  we  be  familiar  with  the 
truths  that  are  without,  less  will  be  our  difficulty  in  recognizing 
the  traces  that  are  within.  The  more  we  gaze  upon  the  radiance, 
the  brighter  will  we  glow  with  the  reflection — and  so  far  from 
opposition  in  the  exercises  of  self-examination  and  of  faith,  there 
is  the  most  necessary  concert,  the  most  important  and  beautiful 
harmony. 

But,  secondly — whatever  difficulties  there  be  in  self-examina- 
tion, we  should  even  now  make  a  beginning  of  the  work.  We 
should  at  least  try  it — and  if  we  do  not  succeed,  repeat  it  again 
and  again.  We  should  set  ourselves  formally  down  to  it,  as  we 
would  to  a  prescribed  task — and  it  were  well  too  if  we  had  a  pre- 
scribed time  every  day  for  the  doing  of  it,  and  let  a  whole  month 
of  honest  and  sustained  perseverance  pass  over  our  heads,  ere  we 
say  of  the  work  that  it  is  impracticable.  The  more  we  live  a  life 
of  faith  through  the  day,  the  more  distinct  and  legible  will  be  that 
other  page  in  the  record  of  our  personal  history,  which  we  shall 
have  to  peruse  on  the  evening — and  however  little  we  may  have 
sped  at  this  trial  of  self-examination,  we  will  either  be  encouraged 
or  rebuked  by  it,  into  a  life  of  greater  effort  and  watchfulness  on 
the  morrow.  In  the  business  of  each  day,  there  will  be  a  refer- 
ence to  the  account  and  settlement  that  we  make  at  the  end  of  it 
— and  the  conclusion  of  each  night  will  serve  either  to  rectify  the 
errors  of  our  preceding  history,  or  to  animate  us  the  more  in  that 
path  by  which  we  are  moving  sensibly  onward  to  the  heights  of 
moral  and  spiritual  excellence.  Thus  indeed  will  we  make  a 
business  of  our  sanctification — and,  instead  of  that  vague,  and 
shadowy,  and  altogether  chimerical  affair  which  we  apprehend  to 
be  the  religion  of  many  a  professor  in  our  day,  will  it  become  a 
matter  of  solid  and  practical  acquisitions,  each  of  which  shall  have 
a  visible  reality  in  time,  and  each  of  which,  by  adding  to  the 
treasure  in  heaven,  will  have  its  distinct  bearing  on  the  interests 
of  eternity. 

Now  when  we  set  about  any  new  exercise  whatever,  we  first 
begin  with  that  which  is  easy,  and  afterwards  proceed  therefrom 
to  that  which  is  more  arduous.  In  the  work  of  self-examination, 
there  is  a  scale  of  difficulty — and  it  were  well,  perhaps,  that  we 
should  make  our  first  entrance  upon  the  work  at  some  of  its  lower 
gradations,  lest  we  begin  our  attempt  at  too  high  a  place,  and  be 
repelled  altogether,  by  finding  that  it  is  utterly  inaccessible. 

To  guide  us  aright,  then,  in  this  matter,  we  might  observe,  that 
the  overt  acts  of  our  visible  history,  are  far  more  noticeable  by 
the  eye  of  self-examination  than  those  affections  of  the  heart  by 


christian's  great  interest.  247 

which  they  have  been  prompted — and,  therefore,  if  not  yet  able 
to  read  the  devices  of  the  inner  man,  let  our  first  attempt  be  to 
read  the  doings  of  the  outer  man :  "  Hereby  know  we  that  we 
know  Him,  if  we  keep  his  commandments."  This  is  a  palpable 
test,  in  as  far,  at  least,  as  the  hand,  or  the  mouth,  or  the  footsteps, 
or  any  of  the  bodily  organs,  are  concerned — and  a  series  of  ques- 
tions regarding  these  were  a  good  elementary  introduction  to  the 
work  of  self-examination. — Have  we,  throughout  the  whole  course 
of  this  day,  uttered  the  language  of  profaneness,  or  contempt,  or 
calumny  ?  Or  have  we  said  any  of  those  foolish  things  which 
might  be  ranked  among  the  idle  words  of  which  men  shall  give 
account  on  the  day  of  judgment  ?  Or  have  we  expressed  our- 
selves to  any  of  our  fellows  in  the  tone  of  fretfulness  and  irrita- 
tion ?  Or  have  we  on  Sabbath  refrained  our  attendance  on  the 
public  ministrations,  and  instead  of  the  readings  and  the  contem- 
plations, and  the  devout  exercises  of  sacredness,  have  we  given 
any  time  to  the  business  and  society  of  the  world  ?  Or  have  we 
been  guilty  of  disrespect  and  negligence  towards  parents,  and 
masters,  and  superiors  of  any  kind  ?  Or  have  we  done  any  acts 
of  mischief  and  revenge  to  the  man  whom  we  hate  1  Or  have 
we  wilfully  directed  our  eye  to  that  which  was  fitted  to  kindle  the 
affections,  or  lead  to  the  purposes  of  licentiousness  ?  Or  have  we 
put  forth  a  hand  of  violence  on  the  property  of  our  neighbor  ; 
and,  what  is  an  offence  of  the  same  species,  have  we  taken  an 
undue  advantage  of  him  in  the  petty  contests  and  negotiations  of 
the  exchange,  or  of  the  market-place  ?  Or  have  we  spoken,  if 
not  a  direct  falsehood,  at  least  a  cunningly  devised  utterance, 
which,  by  the  tone,  and  manner,  and  apparent  artlessness  of  it, 
was  calculated  to  deceive  1  Or  have  we  gone  to  any  of  the 
excesses  of  intemperance,  whether  of  that  drunkenness  which 
inflames  the  faculties,  or  of  that  surfeiting  which  damps  and  over- 
weighs  them.  And  what  this  day  have  been  our  deeds  of  benefi- 
cence— what  our  attentions  of  kindness  and  charity — what  our 
efforts  or  our  sacrifices  in  the  walk  of  Christian  usefulness — what 
our  almsgiving  to  the  poor — what  our  labors  of  piety,  either  among 
the  habitations  of  ignorance,  or  with  the  members  of  our  own 
family  ?  These  are  all  matters  that  stand  broadly  and  discernibly 
out  to  the  eye  of  consciousness.  They  form  what  may  be  called 
the  large  and  legible  types  on  the  tablet  of  self-examination. 
They  form,  as  it  were,  the  primer,  or  the  alphabet  of  this  most 
important  branch  of  scholarship.  It  is  as  easy  for  us  to  frame  a 
catalogue  of  these  questions,  and  sit  regularly  down  every  even- 
ing to  the  task  of  applying  them  in  succession  to  our  reoent  his- 
tory, and  meet  them  with  as  prompt  and  clear  a  reply,  as  it  is  for 
us  to  tell  at  the  end  of  each  day,  what  were  the  visits  that  we 
performed,  or  the  people  whom  we  have  conversed  with,  or  the 
walks  that  we  have  taken,  or  the  bargains  that  we  have  concluded. 
There  is  nothing  of  reconditeness  or  mystery  whatever  in  this 


248  christian's  great  interest. 

process,  at  least,  of  self-examination  ;  and  by  entering  immedi- 
ately upon  it,  may  we  at  length  be  qualified  for  those  more  pro- 
found exercises  by  which  the  intimacies  of  the  heart  are  probed  ; 
and  be  able  to  arrive  at  a  finding,  and  a  familiarity  with  the  now 
hidden  depths  of  a  spiritual  experience. 

There  is  much  to  be  gathered  even  from  this  more  rude  and 
elementary  process  of  self-examination.  "  By  their  fruits  shall 
ye  know  them,"  says  our  Saviour ;  and,  after  all,  much  may  be 
learned  of  the  real  character  of  our  affections,  from  the  acts  in 
which  they  terminate.  In  natural  husbandry,  one  may  judge  of 
the  vegetation  from  the  crop.  It  is  not  indispensable  that  we  dive 
into  the  secrets  of  physiology,  or  that  we  be  skilled  in  the  anatomy 
and  organization  of  plants,  or  that,  with  the  eye  of  direct  obser- 
vation, we  can  satisfy  ourselves  as  to  the  soundness  of  the  root, 
or  the  healthful  circulation  of  the  juices  which  ascend  from  it. 
There  is  no  doubt,  that  a  good  internal  economy  forms  the  very 
essence  of  vegetable  health  ;  and  yet  how  many  an  agricultural- 
ist, from  whom  this  essence  lies  hid  in  deepest  mystery,  can 
pronounce  upon  that  which  is  spread  visibly  before  him,  that  there 
has  indeed  been  a  grateful  and  prosperous  return  for  his  labors. 
He  knows  that  there  has  been  a  good  and  abundant  growth,  though, 
in  the  language  of  a  Gospel  parable,  whose  design  is  to  illustrate 
this  very  thing,  "  he  knoweth  not  how."  And  so,  to  a  great  ex- 
tent, of  spiritual  husbandry.  One  may  be  profoundly  ignorant  of 
moral  science.  He  may  not  be  able  to  grope  his  way  among  the 
arcana  of  the  inner  man.  There  might  not  be  a  more  inscruta- 
ble thing  to  him  in  nature,  than  the  mystery  of  his  own  spirit ; 
and  not  a  darker  or  more  impenetrable  chaos,  than  that  heart 
which  ever  teemeth  with  the  abundance  of  its  own  thoughts  and  its 
own  counsels.  Yet  from  the  abundance  of  that  heart  the  mouth 
speaketh  ;  and  words  are  audible  things — and  out  of  that  heart  are 
the  issues  of  life  ;  and  the  deeds  of  our  life  or  history  are  visible 
things — and  as  the  heart  prompteth  so  the  hand  performeth — and 
thus  a  legible  expression  is  sent  forth,  even  from  the  depths  of  an 
else  unsearchable  cavern,  which  we  at  least  have  never  entered, 
either  to  sound  its  recesses,  or  to  read  the  characters  that  are 
graven  within  its  secret  chambers  of  imagery.  If  we  cannot  go 
profoundly  to  work,  let  us  go  to  it  plainly.  If  the  fountain  be  hid 
let  us  take  cognizance  of  the  stream  that  issueth  from  the  outlets. 
If  we  cannot  guage  the  designs,  let  us  at  least  institute  a  question- 
ary  process  upon  the  doings ;  and  if  we  have  wearied  ourselves 
in  vain  at  searching  for  the  marks  of  grace  upon  the  soul,  let  us 
rememjb^r  that  the  body  is  its  instrument  and  its  vehicle,  and  we 
may  at  least  examine  ourselves  as  to  all  its  movements  of  accord- 
ancy  with  the  ten  commandments. 

Let  us  therefore  be  in  earnest  in  this  work  of  self-examination, 
which  is  reputed  to  be  of  so  much  difficulty,  and  immediately  do 
that  which  we  can ;  and  thus  will  we  at  length  be  qualified  for 


christian's  great  interest.  249 

doing  that  which  we  at  present  cannot.  Let  it  be  the  task  of 
every  evening  to  review  the  palpable  history  of  every  day ;  and 
if  we  cannot  dive  into  the  heart,  we  may  at  least  take  cogniznnce 
of  the  handy  work.  We  may  not  yet  be  ahle  to  analyze  the  feel- 
ings which  enter  into  the  hidden  life  of  obedience  ;  but  we  can 
take  account  of  the  literalities  of  obedience.  The  hasty  utterance 
by  which  we  wounded  another's  sensibilities — the  pleasantries  by 
which  we  enlivened  a  festive  circle,  at  the  expense  of  some  absent 
character — the  tone  of  offence  or  imperiousness  into  which  some 
domestic  annoyance  hath  provoked  us — the  excess  into  which  we 
have  been  betrayed  amid  the  glee  of  merry  companionship — the 
neglect  of  prayer  and  of  the  Bible,  into  which  we  have  once  more 
been  led  by  distaste,  or  indolence,  or  the  urgency  of  this  world's 
business — these,  and  many  more,  are  surely  noticeable  things, 
which  can  be  recalled  by  the  memory,  and  rebuked  by  the  moral 
sense,  of  the  most  ordinary  Christian  ;  and  which,  if  so  dealt  with 
at  the  close  of  any  day,  might  give  to  the  morrow's  walk  a  greater 
care  and  a  greater  conscientiousness. 

What  we  ought  to  do  is  to  begin  now  the  work  of  self  exami- 
nation— we  should  now  make  a  practical  outset,  and  do  forthwith 
all  that  our  attainment  and  ability  will  let  us — we  should  not  des- 
pise the  day  of  small  things,  nor  idly  postpone  the  work  of  self- 
examination  till  a  sense,  and  a  spirit,  and  a  subtlety,  which  we  at 
present  have  not,  shall  come  upon  us,  as  if  by  inspiration.  If  the 
inward  motions  be  too  faint  and  fugitive  for  us  to  apprehend,  let 
us  lay  hold  at  least  of  the  outward  movements,  and  by  a  faithful 
retrospect  and  reformation  of  these,  will  our  senses  at  length  be 
exercised  to  discern  both  the  good  and  the  evil.  What  we  ought 
to  chase  away  from  the  habit  of  the  soul  is  a  certain  quietism  of 
inert  and  inactive  speculation,  when  lulled  by  the  jingle  of  an  un- 
meaning orthodoxy,  it  goeth  not  forth  with  its  loins  girded,  as 
well  as  its  lamp  burning,  and  only  dreams  of  a  coming  glory,  and 
immortality,  and  honor,  instead  of  seeking  for  them  by  a  patietit 
continuance  in  well-doing.  "We  ought  earnestly  to  make  a  busi- 
ness of  our  Christianity,  and  be  diligent  in  doing  that  which  our 
hand  findeih  to  do  ;  and  if  at  present  the  mysteries  of  a  deeper 
experience  look  so  remote  and  inaccessible  that  we  cannot  appre- 
hend them,  let  us  at  least  question  ourselves  most  strictly  as  to  the 
doings  of  our  ordinary  path ;  and  under  the  guidance  of  that 
Spirit  whose  office  it  is  to  reveal  all  truth,  will  we,  at  length,  be 
disciplined  for  greater  things  than  these. 

In  prosecuting  the  business  of  self-inspection,  it  is  of  importance 
that  we  be  guided  aright  in  our  inquiries  into  our  spiritual  state ; 
and  we  know  of  few  works  better  fitted  to  assist  the  honest  in- 
quirer in  his  search,  than  Mr.  Guthrie's  "  Christian's  Great  In- 
terest." It  is  divided  into  Two  Parts,  "  The  Trial  of  a  Saving 
Interest  in  Christ,"  and  "  How  to  attain  to  a  Saving  Interest  in 
Christ ;"  and  we  think  it  impossible  to  peruse  this  valuable  Trea- 

32 


250  christian's  great  interest. 

tise,  with  the  candor  and  sincerity  of  an  honest  mind,  without  ar- 
riving at  a  solid  conclusion  as  to  our  spiritual  condition.  His  ex- 
perimental acquaintance  with  the  operations  and  genuine  fruits  of 
the  Spirit,  and  his  intimate  knowledge  of  the  workings  of  the  hu- 
man heart,  fitted  him  for  applying  the  tests  of  infallible  truth  to 
aid  us  in  ascertaining  what  spirit  we  are  of — for  exposing  and 
dissipating  the  false  hopes  of  the  hypocrite — for  leading  the  care- 
less Christian  to  investigate  the  causes  of  his  declension  in  godli- 
ness, and  to  examine  anew  whether  he  be  in  the  faith — and  for 
detecting  and  laying  open  the  fallacies  and  delusions  which  men 
practise  on  themselves,  in  regard  to  the  state  of  their  souls.  He 
faithful] v  exposes  the  insidious  nature  of  that  deceitfulness  of  the 
human  heart,  which  lulls  men  into  a  false  security,  while  their 
Christianity  is  nothing  more  than  a  heartless  and  hollow  profes- 
sion, and  they  are  standing  exposed  to  the  fearful  condemnation 
denounced  against  those  who  have  "  a  name  to  live,  but  are 
dead." 

Nor  is  his  clear  and  scriptural  exhibition  of  the  dispensation  of 
grace  less  fitted  to  guide  the  humble  inquirer  into  the  way  of  sal- 
vation. As  a  faithful  ambassador  of  Christ,  he  is  free  and  unre- 
served in  his  offers  of  pardon  and  reconciliation,  through  the 
death  and  obedience  of  Christ,  to  the  acceptance  of  sinners  ;  but 
he  is  no  less  faithful  in  stating  and  asserting  the  claims  of  the 
Gospel,  to  an  unshrinking  and  universal  obedience,  and  to  an  un- 
disputed supremacy  over  the  heart  and  affections.  And  to  aid 
the  sincere  Christian  in  the  cultivation  of  the  spiritual  life,  he  ur- 
gently enjoins  an  implicit  acquiescence  in  the  guidance  and  inti- 
mations of  the  Holy  Spirit,  through  whose  operation  it  is  that  a 
cordial  and  affectionate  faith  in  the  whole  of  God's  testimony  can 
be  wrought  in  the  soul ;  by  whose  spiritual  illumination  it  is  that 
the  truth  becomes  the  instrument  of  sanctifying  and  saving  us  ; 
while  by  the  inward  experience  of  the  Spirit's  light,  and  comfort, 
asd  renewing  power,  combined  with  the  outward  and  visible 
growth  of  the  fruits  of  righteousness,  in  the  character,  we  acquire 
the  best  and  surest  evidence  that  we  have  obtained  a  saving 
interest  in  Christ. 

The  intimate  acquaintance  which  he  manifests  with  the  spiritual 
life,  and  his  clear,  affectionate,  and  earnest  expositions  of  the  pe- 
culiar doctrines  of  the  Gospel,  render  this  Treatise  a  precious 
companion  to  the  sincere  Christian;  while  his  powerful  and  ur- 
gent appeals  to  the  conscience  are  peculiarly  fitted  to  awaken 
men  to  a  concern  about  those  matters  to  which  the  Scriptures 
attach  such  an  infinite  importance ;  to  lead  them  in  earnest  to 
avoid  the  possibility  of  continuing  in  deception ;  and  to  constrain 
them  to  seek  after  a  full  assurance  on  that  subject  on  which, 
above  all  others,  it  becomes  men  to  be  well  assured. 


INTRODUCTORY   ESSAY 

TO    THE 

GRACE  AND  DUTY  OF  BEING  SPIRITUALLY  MINDED, 

DECLARED,  AND  PRACTICALLY  IMPROVED. 

BY  JOHN  OWEN,  D.D. 


We  formerly  observed,  in  our  Essay  to  "Guthrie's  Christian's 
Great  Interest,"  that  such  is  the  great  difficulty  of  self-examina- 
tion, that  it  were  well,  if,  instead  of  attempting  at  first  the  more 
arduous,  the  Christian  disciple  should  begin  with  the  more  ele- 
mentary of  its  exercises.  And  for  this  purpose,  at  his  entrance 
upon  this  most  useful  work,  he  might  commence  with  a  daily  re- 
view, if  not  of  the  affections  of  his  heart,  at  least,  of  the  actions  of 
his  visible  history.  These  are  far  more  palpable  than  the  others, 
and  have  somewhat  of  that  superior  facility  for  the  observation  of 
them,  which  the  properties  of  matter  have  over  those  of  the  hid- 
den and  unseen  spirit.  The  great  thing  wanted  is,  that  he  should 
be  encouraged  to  make  the  attempt  in  any  way — and  therefore  do 
we  repeat  our  admonition,  that  on  each  evening,  ere  sleep  has 
closed  his  eyes,  he  should  summon  to  his  remembrance  those 
deeds  of  the  day  that  have  passed  over  him,  which  else  might 
have  vanished  from  the  mind  forever,  or  at  least  till  that  eventful 
occasion  when  the  book  of  their  imperishable  record  shall  be 
opened.  And  it  is  good  also  that  he  should  sit  in  judgment  as 
wrell  as  in  memory  over  them.  Let  him  thus  judge  himself,  and 
he  shall  not  be  judged.  The  daily  remembrance  of  the  one  great 
Sacrifice  will  wash  away  the  guilt  of  those  daily  aberrations  that 
are  faithfully  recalled  and  truly  repented  of;  and  if  there  be  a 
reality  in  that  sanctifying  influence  which  faith  is  said  to  bring 
along  with  it,  then  will  the  very  act  by  which  he  confesses  the 
remembered  sins  of  the  day,  both  bring  peace  to  his  conscience, 
and  purity  to  his  conduct. 

And  this  mere  cognizance,  not  of  the  heart,  but  of  the  handy- 
work,  brings  us  to  the  faith  and  spirituality  of  the  Gospel  by  a 
shorter  path  than  may  be  apprehended.  It  is  true,  that  the  mind 
is  the  proper  seat  of  religion  ;  and  however  right  our  actions  may 


252  OWEN    ON    SPIRITUAL    MINDEDNESS. 

be  in  the  matter  of  them,  they  are  of  no  account  in  Christianity, 
unless  they  have  proceeded  from  a  central  and  spontaneous  im- 
pulse which  originates  there.  They  may  be  moulded  into  a  visible 
propriety  by  an  influence  from  without,  or  have  arisen  from 
secondary  motives,  which  are  of  no  account  whatever  in  the  esti- 
mation of  the  upper  sanctuary ;  and  hence  it  is  a  possible  thing 
that  we  may  delude  ourselves  into  a  treacherous  complacency, 
because  of  the  many  deeds  of  integrity,  and  courteousness,  and 
beneficence  in  which  we  abound.  Still,  however,  it  will  speedily 
be  found,  that  in  the  midst  of  all  our  amiable  and  constitutional 
virtues,  there  are  the  outbreakings  of  evil  upon  our  conduct,  and 
such  as  nothing  but  a  spiritual  principle  can  effectually  restrain. 
In  taking  cognizance  of  these,  then,  which  we  do  in  the  first  stage 
of  self-examination,  we  are  brought  to  feel  the  need  of  something 
higher  than  any  of  those  powers  or  properties  wherewith  nature 
lias  endowed  us — we  are  taught  the  nakedness  of  our  moral  con- 
dition— we  are  convinced  of  sin,  and  thrown  upon  those  resources 
out  of  which  pardon  is  administered,  and  help  is  made  to  descend 
upon  us.  We  are  not  therefore  to  underrate  the  examination  of 
our  doings,  or  think  that  when  thus  employed,  we  are  only  wast- 
ing our  thoughts  on  the  bare  and  barren  literalities  of  that  bodily 
exercise  which  profiteth  little.  Even  on  this  lower  walk  we  shall 
meet  with  many  deficiencies  and  many  deviations ;  and  be  often 
rebuked  into  a  sense  of  our  own  worthlessness ;  and  shall  have  to 
lament,  in  the  many  offences  of  the  outer  man,  how  dependent  we 
are  both  on  a  sanctifying  grace  and  an  atoning  sacrifice.  Or,  in 
other  words,  by  a  regular  habit  of  self-examination,  even  in  the 
rudest  and  most  elementary  branch  of  it,  may  we  be  schooled  into 
the  doctrines  of  sin  and  of  the  Saviour,  and  from  what  is  most 
observable  in  the  outer  path,  may  gather  such  intimations  of  what 
we  are,  and  of  what  we  need,  as  will  conduct  us  to  the  very  es- 
sence of  vital  Christianity. 

Now,  after  this,  there  is  what  we  would  call  the  second  stage 
in  the  work  of  self-examination.  Our  reason  for  advising  a  Chris- 
tian to  begin  first  with  a  survey  of  the  handy-work,  ere  he  pro- 
ceeds to  a  search  and  scrutiny  of  the  heart,  is,  that  the  one  is 
greatly  more  manifest  than  the  other.  Now  it  is  said  in  Scripture, 
"  that  the  works  of  the  flesh  are  manifest ;"  and  what  we  would 
have  him  to  remark  is,  that,  in  the  enumeration  of  these  works, 
the  apostle  takes  account  of  wrong  affections  as  well  as  of  wrong 
actions.  Wrath,  for  example,  and  hatred,  and  envy — these,  in 
the  estimation  of  the  apostles,  are  alike  manifest  with  drunken- 
ness, and  open  quarrelling,  and  murder.  It  would  appear  that 
there  are  certain  strong  and  urgent  feelings  of  the  inner  man, 
which  may  be  as  distinctly  taken  cognizance  of,  as  certain  glaring 
and  palpable  misdeeds  of  the  outward  history.  And  therefore, 
while,  for  the  first  stage  of  self-examination,  we  proposed,  as  the 
topics  of  it,  the  doings  of  the  visible  conduct,  we  would  suggest, 


OWEN    ON    SPIRITUAL    MINDEDNESS.  253 

for  the  second  stage,  the  evil  desires  of  the  heart,  which,  whether 
they  break  forth  or  not  into  open  effervescence,  at  least  announce, 
and  that  most  vividly,  their  existence  and  their  power,  to  the  eye, 
or  rather  to  the  sense  of  conscience,  simply  by  the  felt  emotion 
which  they  stir  up  within,  by  the  fierceness  wherewith  they  rage 
and  tumultuate  among  the  secrecies  of  the  bosom. 

It  is  certainly  worth  adverting  to,  that  while  it  is  said  of  the 
works  of  the  flesh,  that  they  are  manifest,  the  same  is  not  said  of 
the  fruits  of  the  spirit.  And  this,  we  are  persuaded,  will  meet 
the  experience  even  of  the  most  spiritual  and  advanced  Christian. 
Is  there  any  such,  who  can  say  of  his  love  to  God,  that  it  is  a  far 
more  intense  and  sensible  affection  within  him,  than  the  anger 
which  he  often  feels  at  the  provocations  of  insult  or  dishonesty  ? 
Or  will  he  say,  that  his  joy  in  spiritual  things  has  in  it  the  power 
of  a  more  noticeable  sensation,  than  his  joy  in  the  fame  or  good 
fortune  of  this  world  ?  Or  is  the  gentleness  of  his  renewed  heart 
a  thing  that  can  so  readily  meet  the  eye  of  observation,  as  the  oc- 
casional violence,  or  even  as  those  slighter  touches  of  resentful 
and  uncharitable  feeling  wherewith  he  at  times  is  visited  ?  Has 
he  not  often  to  complain,  that  in  searching  for  the  evidences  of  a 
work  of  grace,  they  are  scarcely,  if  at  all,  discernible  ;  whereas, 
nothing  is  more  manifest  than  the  constant  risings  of  a  sinful  affec- 
tion, and  that  weight  of  a  carnal  and  corrupt  nature,  wherewith 
the  inner  man  is  well  nigh  overborne  ?  Is  it  not  distinctly  his  ex- 
perience, that  while  the  works  of  his  flesh  are  most  abundantly 
manifest,  the  fruits  of  the  Spirit  are  of  such  slender  or  question- 
able growth,  as  well  nigh  to  escape  his  observation  ?  And  does 
not  this  furnish  a  ground  for  the  distinction,  that  whereas  the  for- 
mer might  well  constitute  the  topics  for  the  second  stage  of  self- 
examination,  the  latter  has  their  more  befitting  place  as  a  higher 
and  more  advanced  stage  of  it. 

And  here  will  we  make  another  appeal  to  the  experience  of  a 
Christian.  Does  he  not  feel  of  his  evil  affections,  that  not  only  are 
they  more  manifest  to  his  own  conscience,  than  his  gracious  and 
good  ones  ;  but  is  it  not  further  true,  that  they  are  more  manifest 
even  now  than  they  were  formerly — that  he  has  a  more  distinct 
feeling  both  of  their  existence  and  their  malignity  at  this  moment, 
than  he  had  years  ago — that  he  is  greatly  more  burdened  with  a 
sense  of  their  besetting  urgency,  and  is  hence  apt  to  infer,  that  of 
themselves,  they  are  surely  more  aggravated  in  their  character — 
and  that  he  is  getting  worse,  perhaps,  instead  of  advancing,  as  he 
heartily  and  honestly  wishes  to  do,  in  the  course  of  his  sanctifica- 
tion  ?  The  inference  is  not  a  sound  one  ;  for  both  to  the  eye  of 
the  world,  and  to  the  eye  of  witnesses  in  heaven,  he  is  growing 
both  in  humility  and  in  holiness.  But  if  his  growth  in  humility 
should  outstrip  his  growth  in  holiness,  then  to  his  own  eye  may 
there  be  a  fuller  and  more  affecting  manifestation  of  his  worth- 
lessness  than  before.     While  the  sin  of  his  nature  is  upon  the 


254  OWEN    ON    SPIRITUAL    MINDEDNES8. 

decay,  there  may,  at  the  very  time,  be  a  progress  in  his  sensibility 
to  the  evil  of  it.  Just  in  proportion  to  the  force  of  his  resistance 
against  the  carnality  of  the  old  man,  does  he  come  more  press- 
ingly  into  contact  with  all  its  affections  and  its  tendencies  ;  and 
so,  these  being  more  deeply  felt,  are  also  more  distinctly  recog- 
nized by  him.  It  was  thus  with  Paul,  when  he  found  the  law  in 
his  members,  that  warred  against  the  law  of  his  mind  ;  and  when 
he  complained  of  his  vile  body  ;  and  when  he  affirmed  of  the 
struggle  between  the  opposite  principles  of  his  now  compound 
nature,  that  it  not  only  harassed,  but  hindered  him  from  doing  the 
things  which  he  would;  He  did  not  grow  in  corruption,  but  he 
grew  in  a  more  touching  impression,  and  a  clearer  insight  of  it ; 
and  so  of  the  Christian  still,  that  more  in  heaviness  though  he  be, 
under  the  felt  and  conscious  movements  of  an  accursed  nature, 
which  is  not  yet  extinct,  though  under  a  sure  and  effectual  pro- 
cess of  decay,  it  is  not  because  he  is  declining  in  religious  growth, 
but  because  he  is  advancing  in  religious  tenderness ;  striking  his 
roots  more  profoundly  into  the  depths  of  self-abasement,  and 
therefore  upwardly  shooting  more  aloft  than  ever,  among  the 
heights  of  angelic  sacredness. 

We  say  this,  partly  for  comfort,  and  to  remind  the  Christian 
that  it  is  good  for  him,  in  every  stage  of  his  career,  to  keep  him- 
self weaned  from  his  own  righteousness,  and  wedded  to  the  right- 
eousness of  Christ.  But  he  will  also  perceive  how  it  is,  that  just 
as  he  grows  in  positive  excellence,  so  does  he  become  more  feel- 
ingly alive,  and  more  intelligently  wakeful  to  the  soil  and  the  sin- 
fulness wherewith  it  is  still  tarnished  ;  and  thus  will  every  new 
accession  to  his  Christianity  facilitate  the  work  which  we  have 
prescribed  for  him,  on  the  second  stage  of  self-examination. 

It  is  thus,  then,  that  we  would  introduce  him  to  the  business  of 
making  search  and  entry  into  the  recesses  of  the  inner  man.  Let 
him  begin  with  the  evil  affections  of  his  nature,  for  these  are  at 
first  far  more  more  discernible  than  the  others ;  and  even  though 
under  the  power  of  grace  they  are  withering  into  decay,  still  from 
the  growth  of  his  moral  and  spiritual  delicacy,  may  they  remain 
more  discernible  to  the  very  end  of  his  history  in  the  world. 
They  are  therefore  more  easily  recognized,  than  are  the  features 
of  1  lie  new  character,  and  should,  of  consequence,  have  an  earlier 
place  in  the  course  of  self-examination,  that  important  branch  of 
Christian  scholarship.  As  the  habit  of  reviewing  the  handy-work, 
prepared  him  for  entering  on  the  review  of  the  heart,  so  the  habit 
of  reading  those  more  palpable  lineaments  which  are  graven 
thereupon,  may  prepare  him  for  scrutinizing  that  more  hidden 
workmanship,  which  under  the  processes  of  the  economy  of  grace, 
is  carried  forward  in  the  soul  of  every  believer.  And  agreeably 
to  this,  we  would  have  him  to  take  account,  on  each  successive 
evening,  of  every  uncharitable  feeling  that  hath  arisen  through 
the  day,  of  every  angry  emotion  wherewith  he  has  been  visited, 


OWEN    ON    SPIRITUAL    MINDEDNESS.  255 

of  every  impure  thought  that  he  either  loved  to  cherish,  or  did 
not  rebuke  with  a  prompt  and  sensitive  alarm  away  from  him, 
of  every  brooding  anxiety  that  seemed  to  mark  how  much  the 
crosses  of  time  preponderate  with  him  over  the  cares  and  con- 
cerns of  eternity — withal,  of  that  constant  and  cleaving  ungod- 
liness which  compasses  us  about  with  all  the  tenacity  and  ful- 
ness of  a  natural  element,  and  makes  it  so  plain  to  the  enlight- 
ened conscience,  that  though  the  heart  were  exempted  from  all 
the  agitations  of  malice  or  licentiousness,  yet  still  that  Atheism, 
practical  Atheism,  is  its  kindly  and  congenial  atmosphere.  In 
taking  such  a  nightly  retrospect  as  this,  how  often  may  he  be  re- 
minded of  his  preference  for  self  in  the  negotiations  of  merchan- 
dise— of  the  little  temptations  to  deceit,  to  which  he  had  given  a 
somewhat  agreeable  entertainment — of  the  dominant  love  of  this 
world's  treasure,  and  how  it  tends  to  overbear  his  appetite  for  the 
meat  that  endureth,  his  earnestness  for  being  rich  towards  God  ! — 
These,  and  many  like  propensities  as  these,  will  obtrude  themselves 
as  the  mementoes  of  nature's  remaining  frailty  ;  they  will  be  to 
him  the  indications  of  a  work  that  is  still  to  be  done,  the  materials 
for  his  repentance  every  night,  the  motives  and  the  impulses  for 
his  renewed  vigilance  on  the  morrow. 

We  now  enter  on  the  third  and  last  stage  of  self-examination, 
at  which  it  is  that  we  take  cognizance  of  a  past  work  of  grace 
that  is  going  on  in  the  soul ;  and  read  the  lineaments  of  our  new 
nature  ;  and  from  the  fruits  of  the  Spirit  having  now  become  dis- 
tinct and  discernible  within  us,  can  assuredly  infer,  that  now  we 
are  possessed  of  the  earnest  of  our  inheritance,  and  have  the  wit- 
ness within  ourselves,  that  we  are  indeed  the  children  of  God. 
And  we  think,  that  the  humbler  exercises  which  we  have  now  in- 
sisted on,  may  prepare  the  way  for  this  more  subtle  and  recondite 
part  of  the  work  of  self-examination.     Certain  it  is,  that  it  might 
subserve  the  object  of  bringing  the  Spirit  of  God  into  closer  and 
more  effectual  fellowship  with  the  soul.     Only,  let  the  notice  which 
one  takes  of  his  evil  affections,  be  the  signal  to  him  for  entering, 
and  that  immediately,  into  a  war  of  resistance,  if  not  of  extermi- 
nation, against  them.     Having  learned  the  strength  and  number  of 
his  enemies,  let  him  forthwith  be  more  determined  in  his  guardian- 
ship ;  and,  in  proportion  as  he  succeeds,  in  that  very  proportion 
does  he  invite  the  approach  of  the  Spirit  of  all  grace,  and  will 
have  the  benefit  of  his  power  and  workmanship  upon  the  soul. 
"  Grieve  not  the  Spirit,"  says  the  apostle,  and  quench  not  his  in- 
fluences.    Just  as  the  disciple  mortifies  the  pride,  or  the  peevish- 
ness, or  any  of  those  evil  propensities  which  are  the  works  of  the 
flesh,  does  he  take  away  those  topics  of  offence  and  discourage- 
ment which  keep  the  Holy  Ghost  at  a  distance — does  he  remove 
the  obstacles  that  lie  in  the  way  of  his  operation — does  he  begin, 
in  fact,  that  good  work  which  the  Spirit  will  carry  on — does  he 
cease  to  do  evil,  and  learn  from  the  Spirit,  and  is  enabled  by  the 


256  OWEN    ON    SPIRITUAL    MINDEDNESS. 

Spirit,  to  do  well.  Thus  it  is,  that  he  is  made  to  advance  from 
one  degree  of  grace  to  another ;  and,  instead  of  mystically  waiting 
for  an  illumination  and  a  power  which  he  has  no  reason  to  believe 
will  ever  come  upon  him,  idly  looking  forward  to  it  in  the  shape 
of  a  sudden  and  auspicious  visitation,  let  him  enter,  even  now,  on 
that  course  of  new  obedience,  along  which  a  disciple  is  conducted 
from  the  first  elements  of  his  spiritual  education,  to  those  bright- 
est accomplishments  which  a  saint  on  earth  has  ever  realized. 

There  is  one  very  immediate  result  that  comes  out  even  of  this 
earlier  part  in  the  work  of  self-examination.  If  one  be  led,  from 
the  discovery  of  what  is  evil,  to  combat  it,  then  is  he  led  to  be 
diligent,  that  he  may  be  found  without  spot,  and  blameless  in  the 
great  day  of  reckoning.  He  is  working  out  his  salvation  from  sin. 
He  embarks  on  the  toils  of  the  Christian  warfare.  He  fights  the 
good  fight,  and  forthwith  makes  a  busy  work  a  strenuous  conflict 
of  his  sanctification.  And  he  should  not  linger  another  day,  ere 
he  commence  in  good  earnest  this  purification  for  eternity.  He 
should  remember  that  the  terms  which  the  Bible  employs,  are  all 
expressive  of  rapidity: — To /Zee  from  the  coming  wrath;  and  flee 
from  those  evil  affections  which  war  against  the  soul ;  and  make 
haste  to  keep  the  commandments;  and  tarry  not  in  turning  to 
Christ,  and  turning  from  all  his  iniquities. 

There  is  nothing  of  which  the  earnest  and  aspiring  disciple  is 
more  ready  to  complain,  than  that,  while  all  alive  to  the  sense  of 
his  corruptions,  he  is  scarcely  sensible  of  the  work  of  grace  that 
should  be  going  on.  The  motions  of  the  flesh  are  most  distinct 
and  most  discernible,  while,  on  the  question  of  the  Spirit's  opera- 
tion upon  his  heart,  he  is  in  a  state  of  utter  blindnes  and  bewilder- 
ment. He  feels  weighed  down  by  the  remaining  carnality  of  his 
nature,  while  he  feels  not  within  him  any  growing  positive  con- 
formity to  the  character  of  one  of  heaven's  children.  There  is  a 
more  galling  sensation  than  before  of  all  about  him  that  is  evil, 
but  often  without  anything  to  alleviate  the  oppressive  thought,  by 
the  consciousness  of  much  that  is  truly  and  unequivocally  good. 
And  thus  a  discomfort  in  the  mind  of  many  an  incipient  Christian 
— an  apprehension  that  he  has  not  yet  tasted  of  the  Spirit  of  God, 
nor  has  any  part  in  that  which  is  called  the  seal  of  his  redemption, 
the  earnest  of  his  inheritance. 

Now  it  may  comfort  him  to  know,  that  this  very  dejection  of 
his  heart  may,  of  itself,  be  a  fruit  and  an  evidence  of  the  Holy 
Ghost  having  been  at  work  with  him.  This  painful  sensibility  to 
what  is  wrong,  may  evince  him  to  be  now  at  the  place  of  break- 
ing forth,  now  at  the  very  turning  point  of  his  regeneration.  The 
very  heaviness  under  which  he  labors,  is  perhaps  as  decisive  a 
symptom  as  can  be  given,  that  he  is  now  bending  his  upward 
way  along  the  career  of  an  arduous,  but  still  advancing  sanctifi- 
cation. When  the  Psalmist  complained  of  himself  that  his  heart 
clave  unto  the  dust,  and  therefore  prayed  that  God  would  quicken 


OWEN    ON    SPIRITUAL    MINDEDNES9.  257 

him,  he  perhaps  did  not  know  that  the  quickening  process  had 
begun  with  him  already,  and  that  even  now  he  was  actuated  by 
the  spirit  of  grace  and  of  supplication — that  ere  the  lineaments  of 
an  affirmative  excellence  could  come  visibly  forth  upon  his  char- 
acter, it  was  for  him  to  supplicate  the  new  heart  and  the  right, 
spirit,  because  for  all  these  things  God  must  be  inquired  after,  and 
that  he  now  had  come  the  length  of  this  inquiry — that  so  far  from 
this  despondency  being  a  proof  of  the  destitution  of  the  Spirit,  one 
of  the  first  fruits  of  the  Spirit,  in  the  apostle  and  his  converts,  was 
that  they  groaned  inwardly,  being  burdened,  being  now  touched 
as  they  never  were  before  with  a  feeling  of  their  infirmities.  To 
the  now  renovated  eye,  the  soil  that  is  upon  the  character  is  more 
painfully  offensive  than  before ;  and  to  the  now  softened  heart, 
there  is  the  grief  of  a  moral  tenderness  because  of  sin,  that  was 
before  unfelt,  but  now  is  nearly  overwhelming.  The  dead  know 
not  that  they  are  dead,  and  not  till  the  first  moments  of  their  re- 
turning life,  can  they  be  appalled  by  the  feeling  of  the  death-like 
paralysis  that  is  upon  them.  And  let  us  not  then  refuse  that,  even 
under  the  burden  of  a  heavy-laden  consciousness,  the  reviving 
Spirit  may  be  there — that  like  as  with  the  chaos  of  matter,  when 
he  moved  upon  the  face  of  the  waters  he  troubled  and  bedimmed 
them,  so  his  first  footsteps  on  the  face  of  the  moral  chaos  may 
thicken  that  turbulence  which  he  is  at  length  to  harmonize — that 
the  sense  of  darkness  which  now  oppresses  the  soul,  is  in  fact  the 
first  gleaming  of  that  light  by  which  the  darkness  is  made  visible 
— and  the  horror  by  which  it  is  seized  upon,  when  made  to  feel 
itself  in  a  sepulchre  of  corruption,  is  its  first  awakening  from  the 
death  of  trespasses  and  sins,  the  incipient  step  of  its  spiritual  res- 
urrection. 

But,  while  we  allege  this  as  a  word  in  season  to  the  weary,  yet 
should  we  like  a  higher  class  of  evidences,  than  this  for  the  work- 
manship of  God  upon  our  souls — we  desire  a  substantive  proof 
of  our  regeneration,  a  legible  impress  of  some  one  feature  that 
only  belongs  to  the  new  man  in  Christ  Jesus,  and  might  be  an  en- 
couraging token  to  ourselves,  that  on  the  groundwork  of  our  old 
nature  the  true  spiritual  portrait  is  begun,  and  is  now  actually  in 
progress  towards  that  last  finish,  by  which  it  is  prepared  for  a 
place  among  the  courts  or  palaces  of  the  upper  sanctuary.  It  is 
at  this  point  in  the  series  of  our  self-examinations,  that  we  are  met 
with  its  most  formidable  difficulties.  It  is  easy  to  take  account  of 
the  visible  doings.  It  is  easy  to  take  account  also  of  the  evil  or 
corrupt  affections.  But  to  find  a  positive  encouragement  in  the 
sense  that  we  have  of  the  now  gracious  affections  of  a  renovated 
heart — to  descry  in  embryo  the  rudiments  of  a  moral  excellence 
that  is  yet  unformed — to  catch  the  lineaments  of  that  heavenly 
image,  which  is  but  faintly  noticeable  under  that  aspect  of  vigor 
and  entireness  which  still  belongs  to  the  old  and  the  ordinary  man 
— this  is  found  bv  many  an  anxious  inquirer  to  be  indeed  a  baffling 

33 


258  OWEN    ON    SPIRITUAL    MINDEDNESS. 

enterprise  ;  and  though  he  believe  in  Christ,  he  has  been  known 
to  wander  in  darkness,  and  even  in  distress,  because  short  in  all 
his  weary  endeavors  after  the  full  assurance  of  hope  unto  the  end. 

Now,  ere  we  suggest  anything  for  the  guidance  of  his  inqui- 
ries, let  us  remind  him  of  the  difference  which  there  is  between 
the  assurance  of  hope  and  the  assurance  of  faith.  The  one  is  a 
certainty,  founded  on  the  observation  that  he  has  taken  of  himself 
— and  because  he  perceives,  from  the  real  work  of  grace  which 
has  been  performed  on  him,  that  he  is  indeed  one  of  the  children 
of  God.  The  other  is  a  certainty,  founded  on  the  cognizance  that 
he  has  taken  of  God's  promises — and  because  he  perceives,  both 
from  their  perfect  honesty,  and  from  the  ample  unrestricted  scope 
of  their  address  to  all  and  to  every  of  our  species,  that  he  may 
venture  a  full  reliance  for  himself  on  the  propitiation  that  has  been 
made  for  the  world,  on  the  righteousness  that  is  unto  all  and  upon 
all  who  believe.  Now  the  assurance  of  a  hope  is  far,  and  may 
be  very  far  posterior  to  the  assurance  of  faith.  One  cannot  too 
soon  or  too  firmly  put  his  confidence  in  the  word  of  God.  The 
truth  of  his  sayings  is  a  matter  altogether  distinct  from  the  truth 
of  our  own  sanctification.  Even  now,  upon  the  warrant  of  God's 
testimony,  may  the  sinner  come  into  acceptance,  and  take  up  his 
resting-place  under  the  canopy  of  Christ's  mediatorship,  and  re- 
joice in  this,  that  the  blood  which  he  has  shed  cleanseth  from  all 
sin  ;  and,  with  a  full  appropriation  of  this  universal  specific  to  his 
own  guilt,  may  he  stand  with  a  free  and  disburdened  conscience 
before  the  God  whom  he  has  offended.  He  may  do  all  this  even 
now,  and  still  it  is  but  the  assurance  of  faith,  the  confidence  of  one 
who  is  looking  outwardly  on  the  truth  and  the  meaning  of  God's 
declarations.  The  assurance  of  hope  is  the  confidence  that  one 
feels  in  looking  inwardly  to  the  graces  of  his  own  character,  and 
should  only  grow  with  his  spiritual  growth,  and  strengthen  with 
his  spiritual  strength.  But  we  may  be  certain  of  this,  that  the 
best  way  by  which  we  attain  to  the  latter  assurance,  is  to  cherish 
the  former  assurance  even  to  the  uttermost.  Let  us  send  forth 
our  believing  regards  on  the  Sun  of  Righteousness,  and  thus  shall 
we  admit  into  our  bosom  both  a  heat  that  will  kindle  its  gracious 
affections,  and  a  light  that  will  make  them  manifest.  In  other 
words,  let  us  be  ever  employed  in  the  work  of  faith,  and  this  will 
not  only  shed  a  brightness  over  the  tablet  of  the  inner  man,  but 
it  is  the  direct  method  by  which  to  crowd  and  to  enrich  it  with 
the  best,  materials  for  the  work  of  self-examination. 

Let  us  now.  then,  specify  a  few  of  these  materials,  some  of  the 
fruits  of  that  Spirit  which  is  given  to  those  who  believe,  and  on 
the  production  ad  ;_t  >\v-t h  of  which  within  them,  they  may  attain 
the  comfortable  assurance  in  themselves,  that  they  are  indeed  the 
workmanship  and  the  husbandry  of  God.  Some,  perhaps,  may 
be  led  to  recognize  their  own  likeness  in  one  or  other  of  the  fea- 
tures that  we  delineate,  and  so  to  rejoice.     Others  may  be  left  in 


OWEN    ON    SPIRITUAL    MINDEDNESS.  259 

uncertainty,  or  even  be  made  certain  that,  as  yet,  they  have  no 
port  nor  lot  in  the  matter  of  personal  Christianity.  But  whatever 
their  conclusions  may  be,  we  would  commit  all  of  them  alike  back 
again  to  the  exercise  of  that  faith,  out  of  which  alone  it  is  that  the 
spiritual  life  can  be  made  to  germinate,  or  that  it  can  at  all  be 
upheld. 

The  experience  of  one  man  varies  exceedingly  from  that  of 
another ;  but  we  would  say,  in  the  first  place,  that  one  very  gen- 
eral mark  of  the  Spirit's  work  upon  the  soul,  is  the  new  taste  and 
the  new  intelligence  wherewith  a  man  now  looks  upon  the  Bible. 
Let  that  which  before  was  dark  and  mystical  now  appear  light 
unto  him — let  a  power  and  a  preciousness  be  felt  in  its  clauses, 
which  he  wont  altogether  to  miss  in  his  old  mechanical  style  of 
perusing  it — let  there  be  a  sense  and  a  weight  of  significancy  in 
those  passages  which  at  one  time  escaped  his  discernment — let 
there  now  be  a  conscious  adaptation  between  its  truths  and  the 
desires  or  the  necessities  of  his  own  heart — and,  above  all,  let 
there  be  a  willing  consent  and  coalescence  with  such  doctrines  as 
before  revolted  him  into  antipathy,  or  at  least  were  regarded  with 
listless  unconcern — in  particular,  let  there  be  a  responding  testi- 
mony from  within  to  all  which  that  book  affirms  of  the  sin  of  our 
nature — and,  instead  of  the  Saviour  being  lightly  esteemed,  let  his 
name  and  his  righteousness  have  all  the  power  of  a  restorative 
upon  the  soul.  Should  these  things  meet  in  the  experience  of  any 
one,  then  it  needs  not  that  there  should  either  be  a  voice  or  a 
vision  to  convince  us,  that  upon  him  the  Holy  Spirit  of  God  has 
had  its  sure,  though  its  silent  operation — that  he  has  been  plying 
him  with  his  own  instrument,  which  is  the  word  of  God — that  it 
is  he,  and  not  nature,  who  has  evolved  from  the  pages  of  Scrip- 
ture this  new  light  on  the  mind  of  the  inquirer — that,  apart  alto- 
gether from  the  visitation  of  a  trance,  or  a  glory,  or  the  inspira- 
tion of  a  whisper  at  midnight,  there  has  been  a  wisdom  from 
above,  which,  through  the  medium  of  the  written  testimony,  has 
addressed  itself  to  the  man's  understanding  ;  and  the  perception 
which  he  now  has  of  the  things  of  faith,  is  not  the  fruit  of  his  own 
spontaneous  and  unaided  faculties — that  the  things  which  he  has 
gotten  from  Scripture,  he  in  fact  has  gotten  from  the  Spirit,  who 
holds  no  other  communication  with  the  human  mind  than  through 
the  avenues  of  God's  unalterable  record, — they  may  be  the  very 
things  which  the  natural  man  cannot  receive,  and  neither  can  he 
know  them,  because  they  are  spiritually  discerned. 

But,  while  we  hope  that  this  may  fall  on  some  with  an  impres- 
sion of  comfort,  it  is  right  that  it  should  be  accompanied  with  a 
caution.  Though  true  that  there  may  be  a  desire  for  the  sin- 
cere milk  of  the  word,  which  evinces  one  to  be  a  new-born  babe ; 
yet  it  is  alse  true,  that  one  may  have  tasted  of  the  good  word  of 
God,  and  finally  apostatize.  And  lest  any  who  have  been  so  far 
enlightened  by  the  Holy  Ghost  should  be  of  this  hopeless  and  ill- 


260  OWEN    ON    SPIRITUAL    MINDEDNESS. 

fated  class,  let  us  warn  them  to  take  heed  lest  they  fall — lest  they 
fall  more  particularly  from  the  evidence  on  which  we  have  now 
been  expatiating — lest  they  lose  their  relish,  and  so  give  up  their 
reading  of  the  Bible — lest  the  first  love  wherewith  they  at  one 
time  regarded  it  should  again  be  dissipated,  and  that  spiritual  ap- 
petite which  they  felt  for  the  essential  simplicities  of  the  Gospel, 
should  at  length  decline  into  a  liking  for  heartless  controversy  or 
for  barren  speculation.  Let  such  strive,  by  prayer  and  by  a  con- 
stant habit  of  perusal,  to  retain,  yea,  to  augment  their  interest  in 
the  Bible.  Let  them  be  assured,  that  a  kindredness  in  their  heart 
with  its  flavor  ond  its  phraseology,  is  a  kindredness  with  heaven 
— nor  do  we  know  a  better  evidence  of  preparation  for  the  sanc- 
tuary, than  when  the  very  truths  and  very  words  of  the  sanctuary 
are  precious. 

But  again,  another  fruit  of  the  Spirit,  another  sign,  as  it  were, 
of  his  workmanship  upon  the  soul,  is  that  we  love  the  brethren, 
or,  in  other  words,  that  we  feel  a  savor  which  perhaps  we  had 
not  formerly  in  the  converse,  and  society,  and  whole  tone  and 
babit  of  spiritual  men.  The  advantage  of  this  test  is,  that  it  is  so 
very  palpable — that  with  all  the  obscurity  which  rests  on  the 
other  evidences,  this  may  remain  a  most  distinct  and  discernible 
one,  and  be  often  the  solitary  vestige,  as  it  were,  of  our  translation 
into  a  new  moral  existence,  when  some  dark  cloud  hath  over- 
shadowed all  the  other  lineaments  of  that  epistle  which  the  Spirit 
hath  graven  upon  our  hearts.  "  Hereby  know  we,"  says  the 
apostle,  "  that  we  have  passed  from  death  unto  life,  even  that  we 
love  the  brethren."  One  may  remember  when  he  had  no  such 
love — when  he  nauseated  the  very  air  and  aspect  of  sacredness — 
when  the  world  was  his  kindred  atmosphere,  and  worldly  men 
the  only  companionship  in  which  he  could  breathe  with  native 
comfort  or  satisfaction — when  the  very  look  and  language  of  the 
peculiar  people  were  an  offence  to  him,  and  he  gladly  escaped 
from  a  clime  so  ungenial  with  his  spirits,  to  the  glee  of  earthly 
fellowship,  to  the  bustle  of  earthly  employments.  Was  it  so  with 
him  at  one  time,  and  is  it  different  now  ?  Has  he  a  taste  for  asso- 
ciation with  the  pious?  Does  he  relish  the  unction  that  is  upon 
their  feelings,  and  has  he  now  a  tact  of  congeniality  with  that 
certain  breath  and  spirit  of  holiness,  the  sensation  of  which,  at 
one  time,  disgusted  him  ?  Then  verily  we  have  good  hopes  of  a 
good,  and,  we  trust  a  decisive  transformation — that  this  taste  for 
converse  with  the  saints  on  earth,  is  a  foretaste  to  his  full  enjoy- 
ment of  their  converse  in  heaven — that  there  is  a  gradual  attem- 
per inent  going  on  of  his  character  here  to  the  condition  which 
awaits  him  there — that  he  has  really  been  translated  from  the 
kingdom  of  this  world  to  the  kingdom  of  light — and  if  it  be  true, 
that  to  consummate  our  preparation  for  hell,  we  must  not  only  do 
those  things  which  are  worthy  of  death,  but  have  pleasure  in 
those  that  do  them,  we  cannot  understand  why  a  growing  affec- 


OWEN    ON    SPIRITUAL    MINDEDNESS.  201 

tion  on  his  part  for  the  servants  of  God  should  not  be  sustained, 
as  the  comfortable  token  that  he  is  indeed  under  a  process  of 
ripening  for  the  delights  and  the  services  of  the  upper  sanctuary. 

But  there  is  room  here  too  for  a  caution.  There  may  be  a 
sentimental  homage  rendered  even  by  a  mere  child  of  nature  to 
Christianity.  There  may  be  a  taste  for  certain  aspects  of  sacred- 
ness,  without  any  kindred  delight  in  sacredness  itself.  There 
may  be  a  predilection  of  the  fancy  for  some  of  the  Spirit's  graces, 
which  yet  may  augur  no  more  one's  own  vital  participation  in 
that  Spirit,  than  would  his  relish  for  the  simplicity  of  Quaker 
attire,  or  his  admiration  of  that  Moravian  village,  where  his  eye 
rested  on  so  many  peaceful  tenements,  and  his  ear  was  ravished 
at  intervals  with  the  voice  of  melting  psalmody.  And  more  re- 
cently, there  is  the  excitement  of  all  that  modern  philanthropy 
which  requires  combination,  and  eloquence,  and  adventure,  and 
busy  management;  and  thus  an  enjoyment  in  religious  societies, 
without  enjoyment  in  religion.  There  may  go  on  animating  bustle 
in  the  outer  courts,  to  interest  and  engage  the  man  who  had  no 
sympathy  whatever  with  those  chosen  few  that  now  were  ad-  . 
mitted  among  the  glories  of  the  inner  temple.  And,  therefore, 
let  us  try  if,  apart  from  the  impulse  of  all  these  externals,  we  in- 
deed breathe  in  a  kindred  atmosphere,  when  we  sit  down  in  close 
and  intimate  fellowship  with  a  man  of  prayer — if  we  can  listen 
with  eager  and  heart-felt  satisfaction  to  the  experience  of  an  hum- 
ble Christian — if,  when  sitting  by  the  bed  of  the  dying  believer,  we 
can  sympathize  with  the  hope  that  beams  in  his  eye,  and  the  peace 
that  flows  through  his  heart  like  a  mighty  river — or  if,  when  the 
Bible  is  upon  his  lips,  and  he  tries  to  quote  those  simple  sayings 
by  which  the  departing  spirit  is  sustained,  we  can  read  and  rejoice 
along  with  him. 

But,  without  attempting  anything  like  a  full  enumeration  of  the  Q 
Spirit's  fruits,  we  shall  advert  to  the  one  that  perhaps  of  all  others  '  ' 
is  most  indispensable — a  growing  tenderness  because  of  sin — a 
quicker  moral  alarm  at  its  most  distant  approaches,  at  its  slightest 
violations  of  purity  or  rectitude — a  susceptibility  of  conscience, 
which  exposes  one  to  distress  from  what  was  before  unheeded, 
and  left  no  infliction  of  remorse  behind  it — an  utter  loathing  at 
that  which  was,  perhaps,  at  one  time  liked  or  laughed  at,  even 
the  song,  and  the  oath,  and  the  gross  indelicacy  of  profane  or 
licentious  companionship — a  sensitive  and  high-minded  recoil  from 
the  lying  artifices  of  trade— and  withal,  the  pain  of  a  violated 
principle  at  those  Sabbath  desecrations  in  which  we  wont  to  re- 
joice. This  growing  hostility  to  sin,  and  growing  taste  of  its  bit- 
terness, are  truly  satisfying  evidences  of  the  Spirit's  operation ; 
and  more  particularly,  when  they  stand  associated  with  a  just  es- 
timation of  the  Gospel.  Did  the  candidate  for  heaven  still  think 
that  heaven  was  won  by  obedience,  then  we  might  conceive  him 
urged  on  to  the  warfare  of  all  his  energies  against  the  power  of 


262  OWEN    ON    SPIRITUAL    MINDEDNESS. 

moral  evil,  by  the  terrors  of  the  law.  But,  thinking  as  he  does, 
that  heaven  is  a  gift,  and  not  a  recompense,  it  delivers,  from  all 
taint  of  mercenary  legalism,  both  his  love  of  what  is  good,  and  his 
haired  of  what  is  evil.  It  stamps  a  far  purer  and  more  generous 
character  on  his  resistance  to  sin.  It  likens  his  abhorrence  of  it 
more  to  the  kindred  feature  in  the  character  of  God,  who  cannot 
do  that  which  is  wrong,  not  because  he  feareth  punishment,  but 
because  he  hateth  iniquity.  To  hate  the  thing  for  which  ven- 
geance would  pursue  us,  is  not  so  disinterested  as  to  hate  the  thing 
of  which  forgiveness  hath  been  offered;  and  so,  if  two  men  were 
exhibited  to  notice,  one  of  them  under  the  economy  of  works,  and 
the  other  under  the  economy  of  grace,  and  both  equally  assiduous 
in  the  conflict  with  sin,  we  should  say  of  the  latter,  that  he  gave 
far  more  satisfying  proof  than  the  former,  of  a  pure  and  God-like 
antipathy  to  evil ;  and  that  he,  of  the  two,  was  more  clearly  the 
subject  of  that  regenerating  process  under  which  man  is  renewed, 
alter  the  image  of  his  Creator,  in  righteousness  and  in  true  holi- 
ness. 

We  might  have  given  a  larger  exemplification  of  the  Spirit's 
fruits,  and  of  those  topics  of  self-examination,  by  which  the  Chris- 
tian might  rightly  estimate  the  true  state  of  his  spiritual  character ; 
but  instead  of  multiplying  our  illustrations,  would  we  refer  our 
readers  to  the  following  profound  and  searching  Treatise  of  Db. 
Owenj  "  On  the  Grace  and  Duty  of  being  Spiritually  Minded.'* 
Dr.  Owen's  is  indeed  a  venerated  name,  which  stands  in  the  first 
rank  of  those  noble  worthies  who  adorned  a  former  period  of  our 
country  and  of  our  church.  He  was  a  star  of  the  first  magnitude 
in  that  bright  constellation  of  luminaries,  who  shed  a  light  and  a 
glory  over  the  age  in  which  they  lived ;  and  whose  genius,  and 
whose  writings,  continue  to  shed  their  radiance  over  succeeding 
generations.  The  following  Treatise  of  Dr.  Owen  holds  a  dis- 
tinguished rank  among  the  voluminous  writings  of  this  celebrated 
author  ;  and  it  is  characterized  by  a  forcible  application  of  truth 
to  the  conscience — by  a  depth  of  experimental  feeling — an  accu- 
racy of  spiritual  discernment  into  the  intimacies  and  operations 
of  the  human  mind — and  a  skill  in  exploring  the  secrecies  of  the 
heart,  and  the  varieties  of  affection,  and  the  ever-shifting  phases 
of  character, — which  render  this  admirable  Treatise  not  less  a 
test,  than  a  valuable  guide  to  the  honest  inquirer,  in  his  scrutiny 
into  the  real  state  of  his  heart  and  affections.  Amidst  the  diffi- 
s  and  perplexities  which  beset  the  path  of  the  sincere  in- 
quirer, in  the  work  of  self-examination,  he  will  be  greatly  aided 
in  this  important  search  by  the  attentive  and  serious  perusal  of 
this  Treatise.  In  it  he  will  find,  in  minute  delineation,  the  varied 
tastes  and  emotions,  of  affection  and  of  feeling,  which  belong  to 
eith  t  class  of  the  carnal  or  spiritually  minded ;  and  in  the  faithful 
minor  which  it  holds  up  to  the  view,  he  cannot  fail  to  discern, 
roost  vividly  reflected,  the  true  portraiture  of  his  own  character. 


OWEN    ON    SPIRITUAL    MINDEDNESS.  263 

But  it  is  not  merely  as  a  test  of  character,  that  the  value  of  this 
precious  Treatise  is  to  be  estimated.  By  his  powerful  expositions 
of  the  deceitfulness  of  the  human  heart,  he  endeavors  to  disturb 
that  delusive  repose  into  which  men  are  betrayed  in  regard  to  fu- 
turity, under  the  guise  of  a  regular  outward  observance  of  the  du- 
ties of  religion,  and  a  fair  external  conformity  to  the  decencies  of 
life,  while  the  principle  of  ungodliness  pervades  the  whole  heart 
and  affections.  And  here  his  faithful  monitions  may  be  profitable 
to  those  who,  insensible  to  the  spirituality  and  extent  of  the  divine 
law,  are  also  insensible  of  their  fearful  deficiency  from  its  lofty 
requirements — who  have  never  been  visited  with  a  conviction 
that  the  principle  of  love  to  God,  which  has  its  seat  in  the  affec- 
tions of  the  heart,  is  an  essential  and  indispensable  requisite  to  all 
acceptable  obedience — and  that,  destitute  of  a  relish  and  delight 
in  spiritual  things,  and  with  a  heart  that  nauseates  the  sacredness 
of  holy  and  retired  communings  with  God,  whatever  be  their  ex- 
ternal decencies,  or  outward  conformities  to  the  divine  law,  they 
still  are  exposed  to  the  charge  and  the  doom  of  being  carnally 
minded. 

But  this  Treatise  contains  a  no  less  important  delineation  of  the 
state  of  heart,  in  those  who  have  become  the  humble  and  earnest 
aspirants  after  heaven,  and  are  honestly  cultivating  those  affec- 
tions of  the  renewed  heart,  and  those  graces  of  the  Christian 
character,  which  form  the  indispensable  preparation  for  the  de- 
lights and  the  employments  of  the  upper  sanctuary.  He  marks 
with  graphic  accuracy  the  tastes  and  the  tendencies  of  the  new 
creature ;  and  most  instructive  to  the  Christian  disciple  is  it  to 
learn,  from  one  so  experimentally  acquainted  with  the  hidden  op- 
erations of  the  inner  man,  what  are  the  characteristic  graces  of 
the  Spirit,  and  resemblances  of  the  divine  nature,  that  are  engra- 
ven on  his  soul,  by  which,  amidst  all  the  short-comings  and  infir- 
mities of  his  nature,  not  yet  fully  delivered  from  the  bondage  of 
corruption,  he  may,  nevertheless,  have  the  comfort  and  the  evi- 
dence that  he  is  spiritually  minded. 

And  one  principal  excellence  of  this  useful  Treatise  is,  to  guard 
the  believer  against  the  insidiousness  and  power  of  those  spiritual 
enemies  with  which  he  has  to  contend — with  the  deceitfulness  of 
the  heart,  the  natural  and  unresisted  current  of  whose  imagina- 
tions is  only  vanity  and  evil  continually — with  the  ensnaring  and 
besetting  urgencies  of  worldly  things,  into  whose  presence  his 
duties  and  avocations  will  unavoidably  introduce  him — with  the 
ever  busy  temptations  of  the  adversary  of  souls,  to  retain  or  to  re- 
cover the  spirit  which  is  striving  to  enter  in  at  the  strait  gate. 
And,  sheathed  in  the  Christian  panoply,  he  reminds  him  of  the 
struggle  he  must  hold,  of  the  watchfulness  he  must  exercise,  and 
of  the  constant  and  persevering  warfare  he  must  maintain  with 
them  in  his  earthly  journey,  ere  he  can  reach  the  Jerusalem  above. 
In  these  spiritual  tactics,  Dr.  Owen  was  most  profoundly  skilled  ; 


264  OWEN    ON    SPIRITUAL    MINDEDNESS. 

and  it  is  profitable  to  be  instructed  in  the  guardianship  of  the 
heart  against  its  own  treacheries,  and  against  those  evil  influences 
which  war  against  the  soul — which  hinder  the  outset,  or  are  ad- 
verse to  the  growth,  of  the  spiritual  life — and  which  so  often  grieve 
the  Spirit,  and  lead  him  to  withdraw  his  gracious  operations,  so 
indispensable  for  giving  the  truth  a  sanctifying  influence  over  his 
mind.  And  no  less  important  is  it  to  be  instructed  in  the  means 
for  the  successful  cultivation  of  the  Christian  life ;  and,  by  an  en- 
tire renunciation  of  self-righteousness,  and  even  of  dependence  on 
grace  already  received — by  casting  himself,  in  the  confidence  of 
faith  and  of  prayer,  on  Him  who  is  all  his  strength  and  all  his  suffi- 
ciency— by  being  strong  in  the  grace  of  the  Lord  Jesus — and  by 
abounding  in  the  exercises  of  faith  and  of  love,  of  watchfulness 
and  of  prayer,  of  obedience  and  of  dependence  on  the  Spirit  of 
truth,  to  maintain  an  evergrowing  confoi'mity  to  the  divine  image, 
and  to  press  onwards  in  his  earnest  aspirings  to  reach  those  higher 
altitudes  in  the  divine  life,  which  will  fit  him  for  a  high  place 
among  the  companies  of  the  celestial. 

On  the  means  for  the  attainment  of  these  higher  graces  of  the 
spiritual  life  we  might  have  expatiated  ;  but  we  must  close  our 
remarks,  without  almost  one  glance  on  the  heights  of  Christian 
experience  ;  or  those  loftier  attainments  after  which  we  are  ever 
doomed  to  aspire,  but  with  hardly  ever  the  satisfaction,  in  this 
world,  of  having  realized  them  ;  or  those  high  and  heavenly  com- 
munions, which  fall  to  the  lot  of  men  of  such  a  sublime  sacredness 
as  Dr.  Owen  ;  but  for  which  it  would  almost  appear  indispensable, 
that  the  spiritual  life  should  be  nourished  in  solitude,  and  that,  afar 
from  the  din.  and  the  broil,  and  the  tumult  of  ordinary  life,  the  can- 
didate for  heaven  should  give  himself  up  to  the  discipline  of  prayer 
and  of  constant  watchfulness.  It  is,  indeed,  most  humbling  to 
reflect  on  the  paltry  ascent  that  we  have  yet  made  along  that  hid- 
den walk,  by  which  it  is  that  the  pilgrim  travels  towards  Zion ; 
and  how  short  we  are,  after  years  of  something  like  earnestness, 
from  those  untouched  and  untrodden  eminences  which  are  so  far 
above  us.  Where,  may  most  of  us  ask,  is  our  delight  in  God  ? 
Where  is  the  triumph  of  our  serene  confidence  in  him,  over  all  the 
anxieties  of  this  world  ?  Where  that  love  to  Christ,  and  that  re- 
joicing in  him,  which,  in  the  days  of  primitive  Christianity,  were 
so  oft  exemplified  by  the  believer,  and  formed,  in  truth,  the  hourly 
and  familiar  habits  of  his  soul  ?  Do  we  count  it  enough,  in  the 
absence  of  this  world's  smiles,  and  when  the  whole  sunshine  of 
them  is  withdrawn  from  the  bosom,  that  we  still  live  amid  the 
bright  anticipations  of  Faith,  with  the  protection  of  heaven  above 
us,  and  the  full  radiance  of  eternity  before  us  ?  These  are  the 
achievements  to  which  we  must  yet  press  onward  ;  and  perhaps 
the  sensation  of  a  pressure  that  has  yet  been  ineffectual,  is  the  only 
evidence,  in  regard  to  them,  which  we  can  allege  of  a  gracious 
tendency  at  least,  if  not  of  a  gracious  acquirement.     It  is  the 


OWEN    ON    SPIRITUAL    MINDEDNESS.  265 

proof,  not  of  what  we  have  reached,  but  of  the  direction  in  which 
we  are  moving.  And,  at  the  very  time  that  we  are  burdened  un- 
der a  feeling  of  our  deficiencies,  may  we,  from  our  constant  incli- 
nation to  surmount  them,  and  our  many  unsatisfied  longings  after 
the  standard  that  is  higher  than  ourselves,  gather  some  perhaps 
of  our  most  precious  and  legitimate  encouragements  in  the  work 
of  self-examination. 

34 


INTRODUCTORY   ESSAY 

TO 

CALL    TO    THE    UNCONVERTED 

NOW  OR  NEVER;  AND   FIFTY  REASONS. 
BY  RICHARD  BAXTER. 


Having  already  introduced  to  the  notice  of  our  readers  one  of 
Richard  Baxter's  most  valuable  Treatises,*  in  the  Essay  to 
which  we  adverted  to  the  character  and  writings  of  this  venera- 
ble author,  we  count  it  unnecessary  at  present  to  make  any  allu- 
sion to  them,  but  shall  confine  our  remarks  to  the  subject  of  the 
three  Treatises  which  compose  the  present  volume,  namely,  "  A 
Call  to  the  Unconverted  to  turn  and  live;"  "Now  or 
Never  ;"  and  "  Fifty  Reasons  why  a  Sinner  ought  to  turn 
to  God  this  Day  without  delay." 

These  Treatises  are  characterized  by  all  that  solemn  earnest- 
ness, and  urgency  of  appeal,  for  which  the  writings  of  this  much 
admired  author  are  so  peculiarly  distinguished.  He  seems  to 
look  upon  mankind  solely  with  the  eyes  of  the  Spirit,  and  exclu- 
sively to  recognize  them  in  their  spiritual  relations,  and  in  the 
great  and  essential  elements  of  their  immortal  being.  Their 
future  destiny  is  the  all-important  concern  which  fills  and  en- 
grosses his  mind,  and  he  regards  nothing  of  any  magnitude  but 
what  has  a  distinct  bearing  on  their  spiritual  and  eternal  condition. 
His  business,  therefore,  is  always  with  the  conscience,  to  which,  in 
these  Treatises,  he  makes  the  most  forcible  appeals,  and  which  he 
plies  with  all  those  arguments  which  are  fitted  to  awaken  the 
sinner  to  a  deep  sense  of  the  necessity  and  importance  of  imme- 
diate repentance.  In  his  "  Call  to  the  Unconverted,"  he  endeav- 
ors to  move  them  by  the  most  touching  of  all  representations,  the 
tenderness  of  a  beseeching  God  waiting  to  be  gracious,  and  not 
willing  that  any  should  perish  ;  and  while  he  employs  every 
form  of  entreaty,  which  tenderness  and  compassion  can  suggest, 
to  allure  the  sinner  to  "turn  and  live,"  he  does  not  shrink  from 

*  The  Saints'  Everlasting  Rest,  with  an  Essay  by  Mr.  Erskine. 


CALL    TO    THE    UNCONVERTED.  267 

forcing  on  his  convictions  those  considerations  which  are  fitted  to 
alarm  his  fears,  the  terrors  of  the  Lord,  and  the  wrath,  not  merely 
of  an  offended  Lawgiver,  but  of  a  God  of  love,  whose  threaten- 
ings  he  disregards,  whose  grace  he  despises,  and  whose  mercy  he 
rejects.  And  aware  of  the  deceitfulness  of  sin  in  hardening  the 
heart,  and  betraying  the  sinner  into  a  neglect  of  his  spiritual  in- 
terests, he  divests  him  of  every  refuge,  and  strips  him  of  every 
plea  for  postponing  his  preparation  for  eternity.  He  forcibly  ex- 
poses the  delusion  of  convenient  seasons,  and  the  awful  infatua- 
tion and  hazard  of  delay  ;  and  knowing  the  magnitude  of  the 
stake  at  issue,  he  urges  the  sinner  to  immediate  repentance,  as  if 
the  fearful  and  almost  absolute  alternative  were  "Now  or  Never." 
And  to  secure  the  commencement  of  such  an  important  work 
against  all  the  dangers  to  which  procrastination  might  expose  it, 
he  endeavors  to  arrest  the  sinner  in  his  career  of  guilt  and  uncon- 
cern, and  resolutely  to  fix  his  determination  on  "turning  to  God 
this  day  without  delay." 

There  are  two  very  prevalent  delusions  on  this  subject,  which 
we  should  like  to  expose  ;  the  one  regards  the  nature,  and  the* 
other  the  season  of  repentance  ;  both  of  which  are  pregnant  with 
mischief  to  the  minds  of  men.  With  regard  to  the  first,  much 
mischief  has  arisen  from  mistakes  respecting  the  meaning  of  the 
term  repentance.  The  word  repentance  occurs  writh  two  differ- 
ent meanings  in  the  New  Testament ;  and  it  is  to  be  regretted, 
that  two  different  words  could  not  have  been  devised  to  express 
these.  This  is  chargeable  upon  the  poverty  of  our  language  ;  for 
it  is  to  be  observed,  that  in  the  original  Greek  the  distinction  in 
the  meanings  is  pointed  out  by  a  distinction  in  the  words.  The 
employment  of  one  term  to  denote  two  different  things  has  the 
effect  of  confounding  and  misleading  the  understanding;  and  it  is 
much  to  be  wished,  that  every  ambiguity  of  this  kind  were  cleared 
away  from  that  most  interesting  point  in  the  process  of  a  human 
soul,  at  which  it  turns  from  sin  unto  righteousness,  and  from  the 
power  of  Satan  unto  God. 

When,  in  common  language,  a  man  says,  "I  repent  of  such  an 
action,"  he  is  understood  to  say,  "  I  am  sorry  for  having  done  it." 
The  feeling  is  familiar  to  all  of  us.  How  often  does  the  man  of 
dissipation  prove  this  sense  of  the  word  repentance,  when  he 
awakes  in  the  morning,  and,  oppressed  by  the  languor  of  his  ex- 
hausted faculties,  looks  back  with  remorse  on  the  follies  and  prof- 
ligacies of  the  night  that  is  past  ?  How  often  does  the  man  of 
unguarded  conversation  prove  it,  when  he  thinks  of  the  friend 
whose  feelings  he  has  wounded  by  some  hast}'  utterance  which  he 
cannot  recall  ?  How  often  is  it  proved  by  the  man  of  business, 
when  he  reflects  on  the  rash  engagement  which  ties  him  down  to 
a  losing  speculation  ?  All  these  people  would  be  perfectly  under- 
stood when  they  say,  "  We  repent  of  these  doings."  The  word 
repentance   so  applied  is  about   equivalent  to  the  word  regret. 


268  CALL    TO    THE    UNCONVERTED. 

There  are  several  passages  in  the  New  Testament  where  this 
is  the  undoubted,  sense  of  the  word  repentance.  In  Matt,  xxvii. 
3,  the  wretched  Judas  repented  himself  of  his  treachery  ;  and 
surely,  when  we  think  of  the  awful  denunciation  uttered  by  our 
Saviour  against  the  man  who  should  betray  him,  that  it  were 
better  for  him  if  he  had  not  been  born,  we  will  never  confound 
the  repentance  which  Judas  experienced  with  that  repentance 
which  is  unto  salvation. 

Now  here  lies  the  danger  to  practical  Christianity.  In  the 
above-cited  passage,  to  repent  is  just  to  regret,  or  to  be  sorry  for  ; 
and  this  we  conceive  to  be  by  far  the  most  prevailing  sense  of  the 
term  in  the  English  language.  But  there  are  other  places  where 
the  same  term  is  employed  to  denote  that  which  is  urged  upon 
us  as  a  duty — that  which  is  preached  for  the  remission  of  sins — 
that  which  is  so  indispensable  to  sinners,  as  to  call  forth  the  dec- 
laration from  our  Saviour,  that  unless  we  have  it,  we  shall  all 
likewise  perish.  Now,  though  repentance,  in  all  these  cases,  is 
expressed  by  the  same  term  in  our  translation  as  the  repentance 
tif  mere  regret,  it  is  expressed  by  a  different  term  in  the  original 
record  of  our  faith.  This  surely  might  lead  us  to  suspect  a  dif- 
ference of  meaning,  and  should  caution  us  against  taking  up  with 
that,  as  sufficient  for  the  business  of  our  salvation,  which  is  short 
of  saving  and  scriptural  repentance.  There  may  be  an  alternation 
of  wilful  sin,  and  of  deeply-felt  sorrow,  up  to  the  very  end  of  our 
history — there  may  be  a  presumptuous  sin  committed  every  day, 
and  a  sorrow  regularly  succeeding  it.  Sorrow  may  imbitter 
every  act  of  sin — sorrow  may  darken  every  interval  of  sinful 
indulgence — and  sorrow  may  give  an  unutterable  anguish  to  the 
pains  and  the  prospects  of  a  death-bed.  Couple  all  this  with  the 
circumstance  that  sorrow  passes,  in  the  common  currency  of  our 
language,  for  repentance,  and  that  repentance  is  made,  by  our 
Bible,  to  lie  at  the  turning  point  from  a  state  of  condemnation  to  a 
state  of  acceptance  with  God,  and  it  is  difficult  not  to  conceive 
that  much  danger  may  have  arisen  from  this,  leading  to  indistinct 
views  of  the  nature  of  repentance,  and  to  slender  and  superficial 
conceptions  of  the  mighty  change  which  is  implied  in  it. 

We  are  far  from  saying  that  the  eye  of  Christians  is  not  open 
to  this  danger — and  that  the  vigilant  care  of  Christian  authors  has 
not  been  employed  in  averting  it.  Where  will  we  get  a  better 
definition  of  repentance  unto  life  than  in  our  Shorter  Catechism  ? 
by  which  the  sinner  is  represented  not  merely  as  grieving,  but, 
along  with  his  grief  and  hatred  of  sin,  as  turning  from  it  unto 
God  with  full  purpose,  and  endeavor  after  new  obedience.  But 
the  mischief  is,  that  the  word  repent  has  a  common  meaning  dif- 
ferent from  the  theological  ;  that  wherever  it  is  used,  this  com- 
mon meaning  is  apt  to  intrude  itself,  and  exert  a  kind  of  habitual 
imposition  upon  the  understanding  ;  that  the  influence  of  the  sin- 
gle word  carries  it  over  the  influence  of  the  lengthened  explana- 


CALL    TO    THE    UNCONVERTED.  269 

tion — and  thus  it  is  that,  for  a  steady  progress  in  the  obedience 
of  the  Gospel,  many  persevere,  to  the  end  of  their  days,  in  a 
wretched  course  of  sinning  and  of  sorrowing,  without  fruit  and 
without  amendment. 

To  save  the  practically  mischievous  effect  arising  from  the  appli- 
cation of  one  term  to  two  different  things,  one  distinct  and  appro- 
priate term  has  been  suggested  for  the  saving  repentance  of  the 
New  Testament.  The  term  repentance  itself  has  been  restricted 
to  the  repentance  of  mere  sorrow,  and  is  made  equivalent  to  re- 
gret ;  and,  for  the  other,  able  translators  have  adopted  the  word 
reformation.  The  one  is  expressive  of  sorrow  for  our  past  con- 
duct ;  the  other  is  expressive  of  our  renouncing  it.  It  denotes  an 
actual  turning  from  the  habits  of  life  that  we  are  sorry  for.  Give 
us,  say  they,  a  change  from  bad  deeds  to  good  deeds,  from  bad 
habits  to  good  habits,  from  a  life  of  wickedness  to  a  life  of  con- 
formity to  the  requirements  of  heaven,  and  you  give  us  reforma- 
tion. 

Now  there  is  often  nothing  more  unprofitable  than  a  dispute 
about  words :  but  if  a  word  has  got  into  common  use,  a  common 
and  generally  understood  meaning  is  attached  to  it ;  and  if  this 
meaning  does  not  just  come  up  to  the  thing  which  we  want  to 
express  by  it,  the  application  of  that  word  to  that  thing  has  the 
same  misleading  effects  as  in  the  case  already  alluded  to.  Now, 
we  have  much  the  same  kind  of  exception  to  allege  against  the 
term  reformation,  that  we  have  alleged  against  the  term  repent- 
ance. The  term  repentance  is  inadequate — and  why  ?  because, 
in  the  common  use  of  it,  it  is  equivalent  to  regi'et,  arid  regret  is 
short  of  the  saving  change  that  is  spoken  of  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment. On  the  very  same  principle,  we  count  the  term  reforma- 
tion to  be  inadequate.  We  think  that,  in  common  language,  a 
man  would  receive  the  appellation  of  a  reformed  man  upon  the 
mere  change  of  his  outward  habits,  without  any  reference  to  the 
change  of  mind  and  of  principle  which  gave  rise  to  it.  Let  the 
drunkard  give  up  his  excesses — let  the  backbiter  give  up  his  evil 
speakings — let  the  extortioner  give  up  his  unfair  charges — and  we 
would  apply  to  one  and  to  all  of  them,  upon  the  mere  change  of 
•their  external  doings,  the  character  of  reformed  men.  Now,  it  is 
evident  that  the  drunkard  may  give  up  his  drunkenness,  because 
checked  by  a  serious  impression  of  the  injury  he  has  been  doing 
to  his  health  and  his  circumstances.  The  backbiter  may  give  up 
his  evil  speaking,  on  being  made  to  perceive  that  the  hateful  prac- 
tice has  brought  upon  him  the  contempt  and  alienation  of  his 
neighbors.  The  extortioner  may  give  up  his  unfair  charges,  upon 
taking  it  into  calculation  that  his  business  is  likely  to  suffer  by  the 
desertion  of  his  customers.  Now,  it  is  evident,  that  though  in 
each  of  these  cases  there  has  been  what  the  world  would  call  ref- 
ormation, there  has  not  been  scriptural  repentance.  The  defi- 
ciency of  this  term  consists  in  its  having  been  employed  to  denote 


270  CALL    TO    THE    UNCONVERTED. 

a  mere  change  in  the  deeds  or  in  the  habits  of  the  outward  man  ; 
and  if  employed  as  equivalent  to  repentance,  it  may  delude  us 
into  the  idea  that  the  change  by  which  we  are  made  meet  for  a 
happy  eternity  is  a  far  more  slender  and  superficial  thing  than  it 
really  is.  It  is  of  little  importance  to  be  told  that  the  translator 
means  it  only  in  the  sense  of  a  reformed  conduct,  proceeding  from 
the  influence  of  a  new  and  a  right  principle  within.  The  common 
meaning  of  the  word  will,  as  in  the  former  instance,  be  ever  and 
anon  intruding  itself,  and  get  the  better  of  ail  the  formal  cautions, 
and  all  the  qualifying  clauses  of  our  Bible  commentators. 

But,  will  not  the  original  word  itself  throw  some  light  upon  this 
important  question?  The  repentance  which  is  enjoined  as  a  duty 
— the  repentance  which  is  unto  salvation — the  repentance  which 
sinners  undergo  when  they  pass  to  a  state  of  acceptance  with 
God  from  a  state  of  enmity  against  him — these  are  all  one  and 
the  same  thing,  and  are  expressed  by  one  and  the  same  word  in 
the  original  language  of  the  New  Testament.  It  is  different  from 
the  word  which  expresses  the  repentance  of  sorrow ;  and  if  trans- 
lated according  to  the  parts  of  which  it  is  composed,  it  signifies 
neither  more  nor  less  than  a  change  of  mind.  This  of  itself  is 
sufficient  to  prove  the  inadequacy  of  the  term  reformation — a 
term  which  is  often  applied  to  a  man  upon  the  mere  change  of  his 
conduct,  without  ever  adverting  to  the  state  of  his  mind,  or  to  the 
kind  of  change  in  motive  and  in  principle  which  it  has  undergone. 
It  is  true  that  there  can  be  no  change  in  the  conduct  without  some 
change  in  the  inward  principle.  A  reformed  drunkard,  before 
careless  about  health  or  fortune,  may  be  so  far  changed  as  to  be- 
come impressed  with  these  considerations  ;  but  this  change  is  evi- 
dently short  of  that  which  the  Bible  calls  repentance  towards  God. 
It  is  a  change  that  may,  and  has  taken  place  in  many  a  mind, 
when  there  was  no  effectual  sense  of  the  God  who  is  above  us, 
and  of  the  eternity  which  is  before  us.  It  is  a  change,  brought 
about  by  the  prospect  and  the  calculation  of  many  advantages ; 
and,  in  the  enjoyment  of  these  advantages,  it  hath  its  sole  reward. 
But  it  is  not  done  unto  God,  and  God  will  not  accept  of  it  as  done 
unto  him.  Reformation  may  signify  nothing  more  than  the  mere 
surface-dressing  of  those  decencies,  and  proprieties,  and  accom- 
plishments, and  civil  and  prudential  duties,  which,  however  fitted 
to  secure  a  man's  acceptance  in  society,  may,  one  and  all  of  them, 
consist  with  a  heart  alienated  from  God,  and  having  every  princi- 
ple and  affection  of  the  inner  man  away  from  him.  True,  it  is 
such  a  change  as  the  man  will  reap  benefit  from,  as  his  friends 
will  rejoice  in,  as  the  world  will  call  reformation  ;  but  it  is  not 
such  a  change  as  will  make  him  meet  for  heaven,  and  is  deficient 
in  its  import  from  what  our  Saviour  speaks  of  when  he  says,  "  I 
tell  you  nay,  except  ye  repent,  ye  shall  all  likewise  perish." 

There  is  no  single  word  in  the  English  language  which  occurs 
to  us  as  fully  equal  to  the  faithful  rendering  of  the  term  in  the 


CALL    TO    THE    UNCONVERTED.  271 

original.  Renewedness  of  mind,  however  awkward  a  phrase  this 
may  be,  is  perhaps  the  most  nearly  expressive  of  it.  Certain  it  is, 
that  it  harmonizes  with  those  other  passages  of  the  Bible  where 
the  process  is  described  by  which  saving  repentance  is  brought 
about.  We  read  of  being  transformed  by  the  renewing  of  our 
minds,  of  the  renewing  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  of  being  renewed  in 
the  spirit  of  our  minds.  Scriptural  repentance,  therefore,  is  that 
deep  and  radical  change  whereby  a  soul  turns  from  the  idols  of 
sin  and  of  self  unto  God,  and  devotes  every  movement  of  the  inner 
and  the  outer  man,  to  the  captivity  of  his  obedience.  This  is  the 
change  which,  whether  it  be  expressed  by  one  word  or  not  in  the 
English  language,  we  would  have  you  well  to  understand ;  and 
reformation  or  change  in  the  outward  conduct,  instead  of  being 
saving  and  scriptural  repentance,  is  what,  in  the  language  of  John 
the  Baptist,  we  would  call  a  fruit  meet  for  it.  But  if  mischief  is 
likely  to  arise,  from  the  want  of  an  adequate  word  in  our  language, 
to  that  repentance  which  is  unto  salvation,  there  is  one  effectual 
preservative  against  it — a  firm  and  consistent  exhibition  of  the 
whole  counsel  and  revelation  of  God.  A  man  who  is  well  read  in 
his  New  Testament,  and  reads  it  with  docility,  will  dismiss  all  his 
meagre  conceptions  of  repentance,  when  he  comes  to  the  follow- 
ing statements  : — "  Except  a  man  be  born  again,  he  cannot  see 
the  kingdom  of  God."  "Except  ye  be  converted,  and  become  as 
.little  children,  ye  shall  not  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven." 
"  If  any  man  have  not  the  Spirit  of  Christ,  he  is  none  of  his." 
"  The  carnal  mind  is  enmity  against  God  ;  and  if  ye  live  after  the 
flesh,  ye  shall  die  :  but  if  ye,  through  the  Spirit,  do  mortify  the 
deeds  of  the  body,  ye  shall  live."  "  By  the  washing  of  regenera- 
tion ye  are  saved."  "  Be  not  then  conformed  to  this  world,  but 
be  ye  transformed  by  the  renewing  of  your  minds."  Such  are 
the  terms  employed  to  describe  the  process  by  which  the  soul  of 
man  is  renewed  unto  repentance  ;  and,  with  your  hearts  familiar- 
ized to  the  mighty  import  of  these  terms,  you  will  carry  with  you 
an  effectual  guarantee  against  those  false  and  flimsy  impressions, 
which  are  so  current  in  the  world,  about  the  preparation  of  a  sin- 
ner for  eternity. 

Another  delusion  which  we  shall  endeavor  to  expose,  is  a  very 
mischievous  application  of  the  parable  of  the  laborers  in  the  vine- 
yard, contained  in  the  twentieth  chapter  of  the  Gospel  by  Mat- 
thew. The  interpretation  of  this  parable,  the  mischief  and  delu- 
sion of  which  we  shall  endeavor  to  lay  open,  is,  that  it  relates  to 
the  call  of  individuals,  and  to  the  different  periods  in  the  age  of 
each  individual  at  which  this  call  is  accepted  by  them.  We  almost 
know  nothing  more  familiar  to  us,  both  in  the  works  of  authors, 
and  in  the  conversation  of  private  Christians,  than  when  the  re- 
pentance of  an  aged  man  is  the  topic,  it  is  represented  as  a  case 
of  repentance  at  the  eleventh  hour  of  the  day.  We  are  far  from 
disputing  the  possibility  of  such  a  repentance,  nor  should  those 


272  CALL    TO    THE    UNCONVERTED. 

who  address  the  message  of  the  Gospel  ever  be  restrained  from 
the  utterance  of  the  free  call  of  the  Gospel,  in  the  hearing  of  the 
oldest  and  most  inveterate  sinner  whom  they  may  meet  with. 
But  what  we  contend  for,  is,  that  this  is  not  the  drift  of  the  para- 
ble. The  parable  relates  to  the  call  of  nations,  and  to  the  differ- 
ent periods  in  the  age  of  the  world  at  which  this  call  was  addressed 
to  each  of  them,  and  not,  as  we  have  already  observed,  to  the  call 
of  individuals,  and  to  the  different  periods  in  the  age  of  each  in- 
dividual, at  which  this  call  is  accepted  by  them.*  It  is  not  true 
that  the  laborers  who  began  to  work  in  the  vineyard  on  the  first 
hour  of  the  day,  denote  those  Christians  who  began  to  remember 
their  Creator,  and  to  render  the  obedience  of  the  faith  unto  his 
Gospel  with  their  first  and  earliest  education.  It  is  not  true,  that 
they  who  entered  into  this  service  on  the  third  hour  of  the  day, 
denote  those  Christians,  who  after  a  boyhood  of  thoughtless  un- 
concern about  the  things  of  eternity,  are  arrested  in  the  season 
of  youth,  by  a  visitation  of  seriousness,  and  betake  themselves  to 
the  faith  and  the  following  of  the  Saviour  who  died  for  them.     It 

*  To  render  our  argument  more  intelligible,  we  shall  briefly  state  what  we  conceive  to 
be  the  true  explanation  of  the  parable.  In  the  verses  preceding  the  parable,  Peter  had 
stated  the  whole  amount  of  the  surrender  that  he  and  his  fellow  disciples  had  made  by 
the  act  of  following  after  Jesus ;  and  it  is  evident,  that  they  all  looked  forward  to  some 
great  temporal  remuneration — some  share  in  the  glories  of  the  Israelitish  monarchy — 
some  place  of  splendor  or  distiction  under  the  new  government,  which  they  imagined 
was  to  be  set  up  in  the  world  ;  and  they  never  conceived  anything  else,  than  that  in  this 
altered  state  of  things,  the  people  of  their  own  country  were  to  be  raised  to  high  pre-emi- 
nence among  the  nations  which  had  oppressed  and  degraded  them.  It  was  in  the  face 
ofthia  expectation,  that  our  Saviour  uttered  a  sentence,  which  we  meet  oftener  than  once 
ammio;  His  recorded  sayings  in  the  New  Testament,  "  Many  that  are  first  shall  be  last, 
and  the  last  shall  be  first."  The  Israelites,  whom  God  distinguished  at  an  early  period 
of  the  world,  by  a  revelation  of  Himself,  were  first  invited  in  the  doing  of  His  will  (which 
is  fitlv  enough  represented  by  working  in  His  vineyard)  to  the  possession  of  His  favor, 
and  the  enjoyment  of  His  rewards.  This  offer  to  work  in  that  peculiar  vineyard,  where 
God  assigned  to  them  a  performance,  and  bestowed  on  them  a  recompense,  was  made  to 
Abraham  and  to  his  descendants  at  a  very  early  period  in  history ;  and  a  succession  of 
prophets  and  righteous  men  were  sent  to  renew  the  offer,  and  the  communications  from 
God  to  the  world,  followed  the  stream  of  ages,  down  to  the  time  of  the  utterence  of  this 
parable.  And  a  few  years  afterwards,  the  same  offers,  and  the  same  invitations,  were  ad- 
dressed to  another  people  ;  and  at  this  late  period,  at  this  eleventh  hour,  the  men  of  those 
countries  which  had  never  before  been  visited  by  any  authoritative  call  from  heaven,  had 
this  rail  lifted  up  in  their  hearing,  and  many  Gentiles. accepted  that  everlasting  life,  of 
which  the  Jews  counted  themselves  unworthy.  And  as  to  the  people  of  Israel,  who 
valued  themselves  so  much  on  their  privileges — who  had  turned  all  the  revelations,  by 
which  their  ancestors  had  been  honored,  into  a  matter  of  distinction  and  of  vain  security 
— viiiv  had  ever  been  in  the  habit  of  eyeing  the  profane  Gentiles  with  all  that  contempt 
which  is  laid  Upon  outcasts,  this  parable  received  its  fulfilment  at  the  time  when  these 
Gentiles,  by  their  acc<  ptance  of  the  Saviour,  were  exalted  to  an  equal  place  among  the 
chirii  st  favorites'  of  God  ;  and  these  Jews,  by  their  refusal  of  Him,  had  their  name  rooted 
out  from  among  'he  nations — and  those  first  and  foremost  in  all  the  privileges  of  religion, 
are  now  become  the  last.  Now  this  we  connive  to  be  the  real  design  of  the  parable.  It 
was  designed  to  reconcile  the  minds  of  the  disciples  to  that  part  of  the  economy  of  God, 
which  was  most  offensive  to  their  hopes  and  to  their  prejudices.  It  asserted  the  sover- 
eignty of  the  Supreme  Being  in  the  work  of  dispensing  His  calls  and  His  favors  among 
the  people  whom  He  had  formed.  It  furnished  a  most  decisive  and  silencing  reproof  to  . 
the  Jews,  who  were  filled  with  envy  against  the  Gentiles;  and  who,  even  those  of  them 
that  embraced  the  Christian  profession,  made  an  obstinate  struggle  against  theadmission 
of  those  Gentiles  into  the  church  on  equal  terms  with  themselves. 


CALL    TO    THE    UNCONVERTED.  273 

is  not  true,  that  they  who  were  hired  on  the  sixth  and  ninth  hours, 
denote  those  Christians,  who,  after  having  spent  the  prime  of  their 
youthful  vigor  in  alienation  from  God,  and  perhaps  run  out  some 
mad  career  of  guilt  and  profligacy,  put  on  the  Christianity  along 
with  the  decencies  of  their  sober  and  established  manhood. 
Neither  is  it  true,  that  the  laborers  of  the  eleventh  hour,  the  men 
who  had  stood  all  day  idle,  represent  those  aged  converts  who  have 
put  off  their  repentance  to  the  last — those  men  who  have  renounced 
the  world  when  they  could  not  help  it — those  men  who  have  put 
on  Christianity,  but  not  till  they  had  put  on  their  wrinkles — those 
men  who  have  run  the  varied  stages  of  depravity,  from  the  frivo- 
lous unconcern  of  a  boy,  and  the  appalling  enormities  of  misled 
and  misguided  youth,  and  the  deep  and  determined  worldliness 
of  middle  age,  and  the  clinging  avarice  of  him,  who,  while  with 
slow  and  tottering  footsteps  he  descends  the  hill  of  life,  has  a  heart 
more  obstinately  set  than  ever  on  all  its  interests,  and  all  its  sordid 
accumulations,  but  who,  when  death  taps  at  the  door,  awakens 
from  his  dream,  and  thinks  it  now  time  to  shake  away  his  idola- 
trous affections  from  the  mammon  of  unrighteousness. 

Such  are  the  men  who,  after  having  taken  their  full  swing  of 
all  that  the  world  could  offer,  and  of  all  that  they  could  enjoy  of 
it,  defer  the  whole  work  of  preparation  for  eternity  to  old  age, 
and  for  the  hire  of  the  laborers  of  the  eleventh  hour,  do  all  that 
they  can  in  the  way  of  sighs,  and  sorrows,  and  expiations  of  pen- 
itential acknowledgment.  What !  will  we  offer  to  liken  such  men 
to  those  who  sought  the  Lord  early,  and  who  found  him  ?  Will 
we  say  that  he  who  repents  when  old,  is  at  all  to  be  compared  to 
him,  who  bore  the  whole  heat  and  burden  of  a  life,  devoted 
throughout  all  its  stages  to  the  glory  and  the  remembrance  of  the 
Creator  ?  Who,  from  a  child,  trembled  at  the  word  of  the  Lord, 
and  aspired  after  a  conformity  to  all  his  ways  ?  Who,  when  a 
young  man,  fulfilled  that  most  appropriate  injunction  of  the  apos- 
tle, "Be  thou  strong?"  Who  fought  it  with  manly  determination 
against  all  the  enemies  of  principle  by  which  he  was  surrounded, 
and  spurned  the  enticements  of  vicious  acquaintances  away  from 
him  ;  and  nobly  stood  it  out,  even  though  unsupported  and  alone, 
against  the  unhallowed  contempt  of  a  whole  multitude  of  scorners  ; 
and  with  intrepid  defiance  to  all  the  assaults  of  ridicule,  maintained 
a  firmness,  which  no  wile  could  seduce  from  the  posts  of  vigilance  ; 
and  cleared  his  unfaltering  way  through  all  the  allurements  of  a 
perverse  and  crooked  generation.  Who,  even  in  the  midst  of  a 
most  withering  atmosphere  on  every  side  of  him,  kept  all  his  pur- 
poses unbroken,  and  all  his  delicacies  untainted.  Who,  with  the 
rigor  of  self-command,  combined  the  softening  lustre  which  a 
pure  and  amiable  modesty  sheds  over  the  moral  complexion  of 
him  who  abhors  that  which  is  evil,  and  cleaves  to  that  which  is 
good,  with  all  the  energy  of  a  holy  determination.  Can  that  be 
a  true  interpretation,  which  levels  this  youth  of  promise  and  of 

35 


274  CALL    TO    THE    UNCONVERTED. 

accomplishment,  with  his  equal  in  years,  who  is  now  prosecuting 
every  guilty  indulgence,  and  crowns  the  audacity  of  his  rebellion 
by  the  mad  presumption,  that  ere  he  dies,  he  shall  be  able  to  pro- 
pitiate that  God,  on  the  authority  of  all  whose  calls,  and  all  whose 
remonstrances,  he  is  now  trampling  ?  Or  follow  each  of  them  to 
the  evening  of  their  earthly  pilgrimage — will  you  say  that  the 
penitent  of  the  eleventh  hour,  is  at  all  to  be  likened  to  him  who 
has  given  the  whole  of  his  existence  to  the  work  and  the  labor  of 
Christianity  ?  to  him  who,  after  a  morning  of  life  adorned  with 
all  the  gracefulness  we  have  attempted  to  describe,  sustains 
through  the  whole  of  his  subsequent  history  such  a  high  and  ever 
brightening  example,  that  his  path  is  like  the  shining  light,  which 
shineth  more  and  more  unto  the  perfect  day  ;  and  every  year  he 
lives,  the  graces  of  an  advancing  sanctification  form  into  a  richer 
assemblage  of  all  that  is  pure,  and  lovely,  and  honorable,  and  of 
good  report ;  and  when  old  age  comes,  it  brings  none  of  the  tur- 
bulence or  alarm  of  an  unfinished  preparation  along  with  it — but 
he  meets  death  with  the  quiet  assurance  of  a  man  who  is  in  read- 
iness, and  hails  his  message  as  a  friendly  intimation ;  and  as  he 
lived  in  the  splendor  of  ever-increasing  acquirements,  so  he  dies 
in  all  the  radiance  of  anticipated  glory. 

This  interpretation  of  the  parable  cannot  be  sustained  ;  and  we 
think,  that,  out  of  its  own  mouth,  a  condemnation  may  be  stamped 
upon  it.  Mark  this  peculiarity.  The  laborers  of  the  eleventh 
hour  are  not  men  who  got  the  offer  before,  but  men  who  for  the 
first  time  received  a  call  to  work  in  the  vineyard ;  and  they  may 
therefore  well  represent  the  people  of  a  country,  who,  for  the  first 
time,  received  the  overtures  of  the  Gospel.  The  answer  they 
gave  to  the  question,  Why  stand  you  so  long  idle  ?  was,  that  no 
man  had  hired  them.  We  do  not  read  of  any  of  the  laborers  of 
the  third,  or  sixth,  or  ninth  hours,  refusing  the  call  at  these  times, 
and  afterwards  rendering  a  compliance  with  the  evening  call,  and 
getting  the  penny  for  which  they  declined  the  offer  of  working 
several  hours,  but  afterwards  agreed  when  the  proposal  was  made, 
that  they  should  work  one  hour  only.  They  had  a  very  good 
answer  to  give,  in  excuse  for  their  idleness.  They  never  had 
been  called  before.  And  the  oldest  men  of  a  Pagan  country  have 
the  very  same  answer  to  give,  on  the  first  arrival  of  Christian 
missionaries  amongst  them.  But  we  have  no  part  nor  lot  in  this 
parable.  We  have  it  not  in  our  power  to  offer  any  such  apology. 
There  is  not  one  of  us  who  can  excuse  the  impenitency  of  the 
past,  on  the  plea  that  no  man  had  called  us.  This  is  a  call  that 
has  been  sounded  in  our  ears,  from  our  very  infancy.  Every 
time  we  have  seen  a  Bible  on  our  shelves,  we  have  had  a  call. 
Every  time  we  have  heard  a  minister  in  the  pulpit,  we  have 
had  a  call.  Every  time  we  have  heard  the  generous  invitation, 
"  Ho,  every  one  that  thirsteth,  come  ye  unto  the  waters/'  we  have 
had  a  solemn,  and  what  ought  to  have  been  a  most  impressive, 


CALL    TO    THE    UNCONVERTED.  275 

call.  Every  time  that  a  parent  has  plied  us  with  a  good  advice, 
or  a  neighbor  come  forward  with  a  friendly  persuasion,  we  have 
had  a  call.  Every  time  that  the  Sabbath  bell  has  rung  for  us  to 
the  house  of  God,  we  have  had  a  call.  These  are  all  so  many 
distinct  and  repeated  calls.  These  are  past  events  in  our  life, 
which  rise  in  judgment  against  us,  and  remind  us,  with  a  justice 
of  argument  that  there  is  no  evading,  that  we  have  no  right  what- 
ever to  the  privileges  of  the  eleventh  hour. 

This,  then,  is  the  train  to  which  we  feel  ourselves  directed  by 
this  parable.  The  mischievous  interpretation  which  has  been  put 
upon  it,  has  wakened  up  our  alarms,  and  set  us  to  look  at  the  de- 
lusion which  it  fosters,  and,  if  possible,  to  drag  out  to  the  light  of 
day,  the  fallacy  which  lies  in  it.  We  should  like  to  reduce  every 
man  to  the  feeling  of  the  alternative  of  repentance  now,  or  repent- 
ance never.  We  should  like  to  flash  it  upon  your  convictions, 
that,  by  putting  the  call  away  from  you  now,  you  put  your  eter- 
nity away  from  you.  We  should  like  to  expose  the  whole  amount 
of  that  accursed  infatuation  which  lies  in  delay.  We  should  like 
to  arouse  every  soul  out  of  its  lethargies,  and  giving  no  quarter 
to  the  plea  of  a  little  more  sleep,  and  a  little  more  slumber,  we 
should  like  you  to  feel  as  if  the  whole  of  your  future  destiny 
hinged  on  the  very  first  movement  to  which  you  turned  your- 
selves. 

The  work  of  repentance  must  have  a  beginning  ;  and  we  should 
like  you  to  know,  that,  if  not  begun  to-day,  the  chance  will  be  less 
of  its  being  begun  to-morrow.  And  if  the  greater  chance  has 
failed,  what  hope  can  we  build  upon  the  smaller  ? — and  a  chance 
too  that  is  always  getting  smaller.  Each  day,  as  it  revolves  over 
the  sinner's  head,  finds  him  a  harder,  and  a  more  obstinate,  and  a 
more  helplessly  enslaved  sinner,  than  before.  It  was  this  consid- 
eration which  gave  Richard  Baxter  such  earnestness  and  such 
urgency  in  his  '"Call."  He  knew  that  the  barrier  in  the  way  of 
the  s  nner's  return,  was  strengthened  by  every  act  of  resistance 
to  the  call  which  urges  it.  That  the  refusal  of  this  moment  hard- 
ened the  man  against  the  next  attack  of  a  Gospel  argument  that  is 
brought  to  bear  upon  him.  That  if  he  attempted  you  now,  and 
he  failed,  when  he  came  back  upon  you,  he  would  find  himself 
working  on  a  more  obstinate  and  uncomplying  subject  than  ever. 
And  therefore  it  is,  that  he  ever  feels  as  if  the  present  were  his 
onlv  opportunity.  That  he  is  now  upon  his  vantage  ground,  and 
he  gives  every  energy  of  his  soul  to  the  great  point  of  making  the 
most  of  it.  He  will  put  up  with  none  of  your  evasions.  He  will 
consent  to  none  of  your  postponements.  He  will  pay  respect  to 
none  of  your  more  convenient  seasons.  He  tells  you,  that  the 
matter  with  which  he  is  charged,  has  all  the  urgency  of  a  matter 
in  hand.  He  speaks  to  you  with  as  much  earnestness  as  if  he 
knew  that  you  were  going  to  step  into  eternity  in  half  an  hour. 
He  delivers  his  message  with  as  much  solemnity  as  if  he  knew 


276  CALL    TO    THE    UNCONVERTED. 

that  this  was  your  last  meeting  on  earth,  and  that  you  were 
never  to  see  each  other  till  you  stood  together  at  the  judgment- 
seat.  He  knew  that  some  mighty  change  must  take  place  in 
you,  ere  you  be  fit  for  entering  into  the  presence  of  God ;  and 
that  the  time  in  which,  on  every  plea  of  duty  and  of  interest, 
you  should  bestir  yourselves  to  secure  this,  is  the  present  time. 
This  is  the  distinct  point  he  assigns  to  himself;  and  the  whole 
drift  of  his  argument,  is  to  urge  an  instantaneous  choice  of  the 
better  part,  by  telling  you  how  you  multiply  every  day  the  ob- 
stacles to  your  future  repentance,  if  you  begin  not  the  work  of 
repentance  now. 

Before  bringing  our  Essay  to  a  close,  we  shall  make  some  ob- 
servations on  the  mistakes  concerning  repentance  which  we  have 
endeavored  to  expose,  and  adduce  some  arguments  for  urging  on 
the  consciences  of  our  readers  the  necessity  and  importance  of 
immediate  repentance. 

1.  The  work  of  repentance  is  a  work  which  must  be  done  ere 
we  die  ;  for,  unless  we  repent,  we  shall  all  likewise  perish.  Now, 
the  easier  this  work  is  in  our  conception,  we  will  think  it  the  less 
necessary  to  enter  upon  it  immediately.     We  will  look  upon  it  as 
a  work  that  may  be  done  at  any  time,  and  let  us,  therefore,  put  it 
off  a  little  longer,  and  a  little  longer.     We  will  perhaps  look  for- 
ward to  that  retirement  from  the  world  and  its  temptations  which 
we  figure  old  age  to  bring  along  with  it,  and  falling  in  with  the 
too  common  idea,  that  the  evening  of  life  is  the  appropriate  sea- 
son of  preparation  for  another  world,  we  will  think  that  the 
author  is  bearing  too  closely  and  too  urgently  upon  us,  when,  in 
the  language  of  the  Bible,  he  speaks  of  "  to-day,"  while  it  is  called 
to-day,  and  will  let  us  off  with  no  other  repentance  than  repent- 
ance "  now," — seeing  that  now  only  is  the  accepted  time,  and 
now  only  the  day  of  salvation,  which  he  has  a  warrant  to  pro- 
claim to  us.    This  dilatory  way  of  it  is  very  much  favored  by  the 
mistaken  and  very  defective  view  of  repentance  which  we  have 
attempted  to  expose.     We  have  somehow  or  other  got  into  the 
delusion,  that  repentance  is  sorrow,  and  little  else  ;  and  were  we 
called  to  fix  upon  the  scene  where  this  sorrow  is  likely  to  be  felt 
in  the  degree  that  is  deepest  and  most  overwhelming,  we  would 
point  to  the  chamber  of  the  dying  man.     It  is  awful  to  think  that, 
generally  speaking,  this  repentance  of  mere  sorrow  is  the  only 
repentance  of  a  death-bed.     Yes  !  we  will  meet  with  sensibility 
deep  enough  and  painful  enough  there — with  regret  in  all  its  bit- 
terness— with  terror  mustering   up  its   images  of  despair,  and 
dwelling  upon  them  in  all  the  gloom  of  an  affrighted  imagination; 
and  this  is  mistaken,  not  merely  for  the  drapery  of  repentance, 
but  for  the  very  substance  of  it.    We  look  forward,  and  we  count 
upon  this — that  the  sins  of  a  life  are  to  be  expunged  by  the  sighing 
and  the  sorrowing  of  the  last  days  of  it.     We  should  give  up  this 
wretchedly  superficial  notion  of  repentance,  and  cease,  from  this 


CALL    TO    THE    UNCONVERTED.  277 

moment,  to  be  led  astray  by  it.  The  mind  may  sorrow  over  its 
corruptions  at  the  very  time  that  it  is  under  the  power  of  them. 
To  grieve  because  we  are  under  the  captivity  of  sin  is  one  thing 
— to  be  released  from  that  captivity  is  another.  A  man  may 
weep  most  bitterly  over  the  perversities  of  his  moral  constitu- 
tion ;  but  to  change  that  constitution  is  a  different  affair.  Now, 
this  is  the  mighty  work  of  repentance.  He  who  has  undergone 
it  is  no  longer  the  servant  of  sin.  He  dies  unto  sin,  he  lives  unto 
God.  A  sense  of  the  authority  of  God  is  ever  present  with  him, 
to  wield  the  ascendency  of  a  great  master-principle  over  all  his 
movements — to  call  forth  every  purpose,  and  to  carry  it  forward 
through  all  the  opposition  of  sin  and  of  Satan,  into  accomplish- 
ment. This  is  the  grand  revolution  in  the  state  of  the  mind  which 
repentance  brings  along  with  it.  To  grieve  because  this  work  is 
not  done,  is  a  very  different  thing  from  the  doing  of  it.  A  death- 
bed is  the  very  best  scene  for  acting  the  first ;  but  it  is  the  very 
worst  for  acting  the  second.  The  repentance  of  Judas  has  often 
been  acted  there.  We  ought  to  think  of  the  work  in  all  its  mag- 
nitude, and  not  to  put  it  off  to  that  awful  period  when  the  soul  is 
crowded  with  other  things,  and  has  to  maintain  its  weary  strug- 
gle with  the  pains,  and  the  distresses,  and  the  shiverings,  and  the 
breathless  agonies  of  a  death-bed. 

2.  There  are  two  views  that  may  be  taken  of  the  way  in  which 
repentance  is  brought  about,  and  whichever  of  them  is  adopted, 
delay  carries  along  with  it  the  saddest  infatuation.  It  may  be 
looked  upon  as  a  step  taken  by  man  as  a  voluntary  agent,  and 
we  would  ask  you,  upon  your  experience  of  the  powers  and  the 
performances  of  humanity,  if  a  death-bed  is  the  time  for  taking 
such  a  step  ?  Is  this  a  time  for  a  voluntary  being  exercising  a 
vigorous  control  over  his  own  movements  1  When  racked  with 
pain,  and  borne  down  by  the  pressure  of  a  sore  and  overwhelm- 
ing calamity?  Surely  the  greater  the  work  of  repentance  is, 
the  more  ease,  the  more  time,  the  more  freedom  from  suffering,  is 
necessary  for  carrying  it  on  ;  and,  therefore,  addressing  you  as 
voluntary  beings,  as  beings  who  will  and  who  do,  we  call  upon 
you  to  seek  God  early  that  you  may  find  him — to  haste,  and  make 
no  delay  in  keeping  his  commandments.  The  other  view  is,  that 
repentance  is  not  a  self-originating  work  in  man,  but  the  work  of 
the  Holy  Spirit  in  him  as  the  subject  of  its  influences.  This  view 
is  not  opposite  to  the  former.  It  is  true  that  man  wills  and  does 
at  every  step  in  the  business  of  his  salvation  :  and  it  is  as  true 
that  God  works  in  him  so  to  will  and  to  do.  Take  this  last  view 
of  it  then.  Look  on  repentance  as  the  work  of  God's  Spirit  in 
the  soul  of  man,  and  we  are  furnished  with  a  more  impressive 
argument  than  ever,  and  set  on  higher  vantage  for  urging  you  to 
stir  yourselves,  and  set  about  it  immmediately.  What  is  it  that 
you  propose  ?  To  keep  by  your  present  habits,  and  your  present 
indigencies — and  build  yourselves  up  all  the  while  in  the  confi- 


278  CALL    TO    THE    UNCONVERTED. 

dence  that  the  Spirit  will  interpose  with  His  mighty  power  of 
conversion  upon  you,  at  the  very  point  of  time  that  you  have 
fixed  upon  as  convenient  and  agreeable  ?  And  how  do  you  con- 
ciliate the  Spirit's  answer  to  your  call  then?  Why,  by  doing  all 
you  can  to  grieve,  and  to  quench,  and  to  provoke  Him  to  abandon 
you  now.  Do  you  feel  a  motion  towards  repentance  at  this  mo- 
ment ?  If  you  keep  it  alive,  and  act  upon  it,  good  and  well.  But 
if  you  smother  and  suppress  this  motion,  you  resist  the  Spirit — 
you  stifle  His  movements  within  you  :  it  is  what  the  impenitent 
do  day  after  day,  and  year  after  year — and  is  this  the  way  for  se- 
curing the  influences  of  the  Spirit,  at  the  time  that  you  would  like 
them  best  ?  When  you  are  done  with  the  world,  and  are  looking 
forward  to  eternity  because  you  cannot  help  it?  God  says,  "  My 
Spirit  will  not  always  strive  with  the  children  of  men."  A  good 
and  a  free  Spirit  He  undoubtedly  is,  and  as  a  proof  of  it,  He  is 
now  saying,  "  Let  whosoever  will,  come  and  drink  of  the  water 
of  life  freely."  He  says  so  now,  but  we  do  not  promise  that  He 
will  say  so  with  effect  upon  your  death-beds,  if  you  refuse  Him 
now.  You  look  forward  then  for  a  powerful  work  of  conversion 
being  done  upon  you,  and  yet  you  employ  yourselves  all  your 
life  long  in  raising  and  multiplying  obstacles  against  it.  You 
count  upon  a  miracle  of  grace  before  you  die,  and  the  way  you 
take  to  make  yourselves  sure  of  it,  is  to  grieve  and  offend  Him 
while  you  live,  who  alone  can  perform  the  miracle.  O  what 
cruel  deceits  will  sin  land  us  in  !  and  how  artfully  it  pleads  for  a 
"  little  more  sleep,  and  a  little  more  slumber  ;  a  little  more  folding 
of  the  hands  to  sleep."  We  should  hold  out  no  longer,  nor  make 
not  such  an  abuse  of  the  forbearance  of  God  :  we  will  treasure 
up  wrath  against  the  day  of  wrath  if  we  do  so.  The  genuine 
effect  of  his  goodness  is  to  lead  to  repentance  ;  let  not  its  effect 
upon  us  be  to  harden  and  encourage  ourselves  in  the  ways  of  sin. 
We  should  cry  now  for  the  clean  heart  and  the  right  spirit ;  and 
such  is  the  exceeding  freeness  of  the  Spirit  of  God,  that  we  will 
be  listened  to.  If  we  put  off  the  cry  till  then,  the  same  God  may 
laugh  at  our  calamity,  and  mock  when  our  fear  cometh. 

3.  Our  next  argument  for  immediate  repentance  is,  that  we 
cannot  bring  forward,  at  any  future  period  of  your  history,  any 
foii-iclerations  of  a  more  prevailing  or  more  powerfully  moving 
influence  than  those  we  may  bring  forward  at  this  moment.  We 
can  tell  you  now  of  the  terrors  of  the  Lord.  We  can  tell  you 
now  of  the  solemn  mandates  which  have  issued  from  his  throne — 
and  the  authority  of  which  is  upon  one  and  all  of  you.  We  can 
tell  you  now,  that  though,  in  this  dead  and  darkened  world,  sin 
appears  but  a  very  trivial  affair — for  everybody  sins,  and  it  is 
shielded  from  execration  by  the  universal  countenance  of  an  en- 
tire species  lying  in  wickedness — yet  it  holds  true  of  God,  what 
is  so  emphatically  said  of  him,  that  he  cannot  be  mocked,  nor  will 
he  endure  it  that  you  should  riot  in  the  impunity  of  your  wilful 


CALL    TO    THE    UNCONVERTED.  279 

resistance  to  him  and  to  his  warnings.  We  can  tell  you  now,  that 
he  is  a  God  of  vengeance ;  and  though,  for  a  season,  he  is  keep- 
ing back  all  the  thunders  of  it  from  a  world  that  he  would  like  to 
reclaim  unto  himself,  yet,  if  you  put  all  his  expostulations  away 
from  you,  and  will  not  be  reclaimed,  these  thunders  will  be  let 
loose  upon  you,  and  they  will  fall  on  your  guilty  heads,  armed 
with  tenfold  energy,  because  you  have  not  only  defied  his  threats, 
but  turned  your  back  on  his  offers  of  reconciliation.  These  are 
the  arguments  by  which  we  would  try  to  open  our  way  to  your 
consciences,  and  to  awaken  up  your  fears,  and  to  put  the  inspir- 
ing activity  of  hope  into  your  bosoms,  by  laying  before  you  those 
invitations  which  are  addressed  to  the  sinner,  through  the  peace- 
speaking  blood  of  Jesus,  and  in  the  name  of  a  beseeching  God,  to 
win  your  acceptance  of  them.  At  no  future  period  can  we  ad- 
dress arguments  more  powerful  and  more  affecting  than  these. 
If  these  arguments  do  not  prevail  upon  you,  we  know  of  none 
others  by  which  a  victory  over  the  stubborn  and  uncomplying 
will  can  be  accomplished,  or  by  which  we  can  ever  hope  to  beat 
in  that  sullen  front  of  resistance  wherewith  you  now  so  impreg- 
nably  withstand  us.  We  feel  that,  if  any  stout-hearted  sinner 
shall  rise  from  the  persual  of  these  Treatises  with  an  una  wakened 
conscience,  and  give  himself  to  an  act  of  wilful  disobedience,  we 
feel  as  if,  in  reference  to  him,  we  had  made  our  last  discharge, 
and  it  fell  powerless  as  water  spilt  on  the  ground,  that  cannot  be 
gathered  up  again.  We  would  not  cease  to  ply  him  with  our  ar- 
guments, and  tell  him,  to  the  hour  of  death,  of  the  Lord  God, 
merciful  and  gracious,  who  is  not  willing  that  any  should  perish, 
but  that  all  should  turn  to  him,  and  live.  And  if  in  future  life  we 
should  meet  him  at  the  eleventh  hour  of  his  dark  and  deceitful 
day — a  hoary  sinner,  sinking  under  the  decrepitude  of  age,  and 
bending  on  the  side  of  the  grave  that  is  open  to  receive  him — 
even  then  we  would  testify  the  exceeding  freeness  of  the  grace 
of  God,  and  implore  his  acceptance  of  it.  But  how  could  it  be 
away  from  our  minds  that  he  is  not  one  of  the  evening  laborers 
of  the  parable  ?  We  had  met  with  him  at  former  periods  of  his 
existence,  and  the  offer  we  make  him  now  we  made  him  then,  and 
he  did  what  the  laborers  of  the  third,  and  sixth,  and  ninth  hours 
of  the  parable  did  not  do — he  rejected  our  call  to  hire  him  into 
the  vineyard ;  and  this  heartless  recollection,  if  it  did  not  take 
all  our  energy  away  from  us,  would  leave  us  little  else  than  the 
energy  of  despair.  And  therefore  it  is,  that  we  speak  to  you  now 
as  if  this  was  our  last  hold  of  you.  We  feel  as  if  on  your  pres- 
ent purpose  hung  all  the  preparations  of  your  future  life,  and  all 
the  rewards  or  all  the  horrors  of  your  coming  eternity.  We 
will  not  let  you  off  with  any  other  repentance  than  repentance 
now ;  and  if  this  be  refused  now,  we  cannot,  with  our  eyes  open 
to  the  consideration  we  have  now  urged,  that  the  instrument  we 
make  to  bear  upon  you  afterwards  is  not  more  powerful  than  we 


280  CALL    TO    THE    UNCONVERTED. 

are  wielding  now,  coupled  with  another  consideration  which  we 
shall  insist  upon,  that  the  subject  on  which  the  instrument  worketh, 
even  the  heart  of  man,  gathers,  by  every  act  of  resistance,  a  more 
uncomplying  obstinacy  than  before ;  we  cannot,  with  these  two 
thoughts  in  our  mind,  look  forward  to  your  future  history,  without 
seeing  spread  over  the  whole  path  of  it  the  iron  of  a  harder  im- 
penitency — the  sullen  gloom  of  a  deeper  and  more  determined 
alienation. 

4.  Another  argument,  therefore,  for  immediate  repentance  is, 
that  the  mind  which  resists  a  present  call  or  a  present  reproof 
undergoes  a  progressive  hardening  towards  all  those  considera- 
tions which  arm  the  call  of  repentance  with  all  its  energy.  It  is 
not  enough  to  say,  that  the  instrument  by  which  repentance  is 
brought  about,  is  not  more  powerful  to-morrow  than  it  is  to-day ; 
it  lends  a  most  tremendous  weight  to  the  argument,  to  say  further, 
that  the  subject  on  which  this  instrument  is  putting  forth  its  effi- 
ciency, will  oppose  a  firmer  resistance  to-morrow  than  it  does  to- 
day. It  is  this  which  gives  a  significancy  so  powerful  to  the  call 
of  "  To-day  while  it  is  to-day,  harden  not  your  hearts  ;"  and  to  the 
admonition  of  "  Knowest  thou  not,  O  man,  that  the  goodness  of 
God  leadeth  thee  to  repentance ;  but  after,  thy  hardness  and  im- 
penitent heart  treasurest  up  wrath  against  the  day  of  wrath  and 
revelation  of  the  righteous  judgments  of  God  V  It  is  not  said, 
either  in  the  one  or  in  the  other  of  these  passages,  that,  by  the 
present  refusal,  you  cut  yourself  off  from  a  future  invitation.  The 
invitation  may  be  sounded  in  your  hearing  to  the  last  half  hour  of 
your  earthly  existence,  engraved  in  all  those  characters  of  free 
and  gratuitous  kindness  which  mark  the  beneficent  religion  of  the 
New  Testament.  But  the  present  refusal  hardens  you  against 
the  power  and  tenderness  of  the  future  invitation.  This  is  the 
fact  in  human  nature  to  which  these  passages  seem  to  point,  and 
it  is  the  fact  through  which  the  argument  for  immediate  repent- 
ance receives  such  powerful  aid  from  the  wisdom  of  experience. 
It  is  this  which  forms  the  most  impressive  proof  of  the  necessity 
of  plying  the  young  with  all  the  weight  and  all  the  tenderness  of 
earnest  admonition,  that  the  now  susceptible  mind  might  not  turn 
into  a  substance  harder  and  more  uncomplying  than  the  rock 
which  is  broken  in  pieces  by  the  powerful, application  of  the  ham- 
mer of  the  word  of  God. 

The  metal  of  the  human  soul,  so  to  speak,  is  like  some  material 
substances.  If  the  force  you  lay  upon  it  do  not  break  it,  or  dis- 
solve it,  it  will  beat  it  into  hardness.  If  the  moral  argument  by 
which  it  is  plied  now,  do  not  so  soften  the  mind  as  to  carry  and  to 
overpower  its  purposes,  then,  on  another  day,  the  argument  may 
be  put  forth  in  terms  as  impressive — but  it  falls  on  a  harder  mind, 
and,  therefore,  with  a  more  slender  efficiency.  If  the  threat,  that 
ye  who  persist  in  sin  shall  have  to  dwell  with  the  devouring  fire, 
and  to  lie  down  amid  everlasting  burnings,  do  not  alarm  you  out 


CALL    TO    THE    UNCONVERTED.  281 

of  your  iniquities  from  this  very  moment,  then  the  same  threat 
may  be  again  cast  out,  and  the  same  appalling  circumstances  of 
terror  be  thrown  around  it,  but  it  is  all  discharged  on  a  soul  hard- 
ened by  its  inurement  to  the  thunder  of  denunciations  already  ut- 
tered, and  the  urgency  of  menacing  threatenings  already  poured 
forth  without  fruit  and  without  efficacy.  If  the  voice  of  a  be- 
seeching God  do  not  win  upon  you  now,  and  charm  you  out  of 
your  rebellion  against  him,  by  the  persuasive  energy  of  kindness, 
then  let  that  voice  be  lifted  in  your  hearing  on  some  future  day, 
and  though  armed  with  all  the  power  of  tenderness  it  ever  had, 
how  shall  it  find  its  entrance  into  a  heart  sheathed  by  the  opera- 
tion of  habit,  that  universal  law,  in  more  impenetrable  obstinacy  ? 
If,  with  the  earliest  dawn  of  your  understanding,  you  have  been 
offered  the  hire  of  the  morning  laborer  and  have  refused  it,  then 
the  parable  does  not  say  that  you  are  the  person  who  at  the  third, 
or  sixth,  or  ninth,  or  eleventh  hour,  will  get  the  offer  repeated  to 
you.  It  is  true,  that  the  offer  is  unto  all  and  upon  all  who  are 
within  reach  of  the  hearing  of  it.  But  there  is  all  the  differ- 
ence in  the  world  between  the  impression  of  a  new  offer,  and  of 
an  offer  that  has  already  been  often  heard  and  as  often  rejected 
— an  offer  which  comes  upon  you  with  all  the  familiarity  of  a  well- 
known  sound  that  you  have  already  learned  how  to  dispose  of, 
and  how  to  shut  your  every  feeling  against  the  power  of  its  gra- 
cious invitations — an  offer  which,  if  discarded  from  your  hearts 
at  the  present  moment,  may  come  back  upon  you,  but  which  will 
have  to  maintain  a  more  unequal  contest  than  before,  with  an  im- 
penitency  ever  strengthening,  and  ever  gathering  new  hardness 
from  each  successive  act  of  resistance.  And  thus  it  is  that  the 
point  for  which  we  are  contending  is  not  to  carry  you  at  some 
future  period  of  your  lives,  but  to  carry  you  at  this  moment.  It 
is  to  work  in  you  the  instantaneous  purpose  of  a  firm  and  a  vigor- 
ously sustained  repentance  ;  it  is  to  put  into  you  all  the  freshness 
of  an  immediate  resolution,  and  to  stir  you  up  to  all  the  readiness 
of  an  immediate  accomplishment — it  is  to  give  direction  to  the 
very  first  footstep  you  are  now  to  take,  and  lead  you  to  take  it  as 
the  commencement  of  that  holy  career,  in  which  all  old  things  are 
done  away,  and  all  things  become  new — it  is  to  press  it  upon  you, 
that  the  state  of  the  alternative,  at  this  moment,  is  "  now  or  never" 
— it  is  to  prove  how  fearful  the  odds  are  against  you,  if  now  you 
suffer  the  call  of  repentance  to  light  upon  your  consciences,  and 
still  keep  by  your  determined  posture  of  careless,  and  thoughtless, 
and  thankless  unconcern  about  God.  You  have  resisted  to-day, 
and  by  that  resistance  you  have  acquired  a  firmer  metal  of  resist- 
ance against  the  power  of  every  future  warning  that  may  be 
brought  to  bear  upon  you.  You  have  stood  your  ground  against 
the  urgency  of  the  most  earnest  admonitions,  and  against  the  dread- 
fulness  of  the  most  terrifying  menaces.  On  that  ground  you  have 
fixed  vourself  moreimmovablv  than  before  ;  and  though  on  some 

3Q 


282  CALL    TO    THE    UNCONVERTED. 

future  day  the  same  spiritual  thunder  be  made  to  play  around  you, 
it  will  not  shake  you  out  of  the  obstinacy  of  your  determined  re- 
bellion. 

It  is  the  universal  law  of  habit,  that  the  feelings  are  always  get- 
ting more  faintly  and  feebly  impressed  by  every  repetition  of  the 
cause  which  excited  them,  and  that  the  mind  is  always  getting 
stronger  in  its  active  resistance  to  the  impulse  of  these  feelings, 
by  every  new  deed  of  resistance  which  it  performs  ;  and  thus  it 
is,  that  if  you  refuse  us  now,  we  have  no  other  prospect  before  us 
than  that  your  cause  is  every  day  getting  more  desperate  and  more 
irrecoverable,  your  souls  are  getting  more  hardened,  the  Spirit  is 
getting  more  provoked  to  abandon  those  who  have  so  long  per- 
sisted in  their  opposition  to  his  movements.  God,  who  says  that 
his  Spirit  will  not  always  strive  with  the  children  of  men,  is  get- 
ting more  offended.  The  tyranny  of  habit  is  getting  every  day  a 
firmer  ascendency  over  you  ;  Satan  is  getting  you  more  helplessly 
involved  among  his  wiles  and  his  entanglements  ;  the  world,  with 
all  the  inveteracy  of  those  desires  which  are  opposite  to  the  will 
of  the  Father,  is  more  and  more  lording  it  over  your  every  affec- 
tion. 

And  what,  we  would  ask,  what  is  the  scene  in  which  you  are 
now  purposing  to  contest  it,  with  all  this  mighty  force  of  opposi- 
tion you  are  now  so  busy  in  raising  up  against  you?  What  is  the 
field  of  combat  to  which  you  are  now  looking  forward,  as  the 
place  where  you  are  to  accomplish  a  victory  over  all  those  formi- 
dable enemies  whom  you  are  at  present  arming  with  such  a  weight 
of  hostility,  as,  we  say,  within  a  single  hairbreadth  of  certainty, 
you  will  find  to  be  irresistible  ?  O  the  bigness  of  such  a  mislead- 
ing infatuation  !  The  proposed  scene  in  which  this  battle  for  eter- 
nity is  to  be  fought,  and  this  victory  for  the  crown  of  glory  is  to 
be  won,  is  a  death-bed.  It  is  when  the  last  messenger  stands  by 
the  couch  of  the  dying  man,  and  shakes  at  him  the  terrors  of  his 
grizly  countenance,  that  the  poor  child  of  infatuation  thinks  he  is 
to  struggle  and  prevail  against  all  his  enemies  ;  against  the  unre- 
lenting tyranny  of  habit — against  the  obstinacy  of  his  own  heart, 
which  he  is  now  doing  so  much  to  harden — against  the  Spirit  of 
God  who  perhaps  long  ere  now  has  pronounced  the  doom  upon 
him,  "  He  will  take  his  own  way,  and  walk  in  his  own  counsel  ; 
I  shall  cease  from  striving,  and  let  him  alone" — against  Satan, 
to  whom  every  day  of  his  life  he  has  given  some  fresh  advan- 
tage over  him,  and  who  will  not  be  willing  to  lose  the  victim  on 
whom  he  has  practised  so  many  wiles,  and  plied  with  success  so 
many  delusions.  And  such  are  the  enemies  whom  you,  who 
wretchedly  calculate  on  the  repentance  of  the  eleventh  hour,  are 
every  day  mustering  up  in  greater  force  and  formidableness 
against  you :  and  how  can  we  think  of  letting  you  go,  with  any 
other  repentance  than  the  repentance  of  the  precious  moment 
that  is  now  passing  over  you,  when  we  look  forward  to  the  hor- 


CALL    TO    THE    UNCONVERTED.  283 

rors  of  that  impressive  scene,  on  which  you  propose  to  win  the 
prize  of  immortality,  and  to  contest  it  single-handed  and  alone, 
with  all  the  weight  of  opposition  which  you  have  accumulated 
against  yourselves — a  death-bed — a  languid,  breathless,  tossing, 
and  agitated  death-bed  ;  that  scene  of  feebleness,  when  the  poor 
man  cannot  help  himself  to  a  single  mouthful — when  he  must  have 
attendants  to  sit  around  him,  and  watch  his  every  wish,  and  inter- 
pret his  every  signal,  and  turn  him  to  every  posture  where  he 
may  find  a  moment's  ease,  and  wipe  away  the  cold  sweat  that  is 
running  over  him — and  ply  him  with  cordials  for  thirst,  and  sick- 
ness, and  insufferable  languor.  And  this  is  the  time,  when  occu- 
pied with  such  feelings,  and  beset  with  such  agonies  as  these,  you 
propose  to  crowd  within  the  compass  of  a  few  wretched  days,  the 
work  of  winding  up  the  concerns  of  a  neglected  eternity  ! 

5.  But  it  may  be  said,  if  repentance  be  what  you  represent  it, 
a  thing  of  such  mighty  import,  and  such  impracticable  perform- 
ance, as  a  change  of  mind,  in  what  rational  way  can  it  be  made 
the  subject  of  a  precept  or  an  injunction  ?  you  would  not  call  upon 
the  Ethiopian  to  change  his  skin — you  would  not  call  upon  the 
leopard  to  change  his  spots  ;  and  yet  you  call  upon  us  to  change 
our  minds.  You  say,  "  Repent ;"  and  that  too  in  the  face  of  the 
undeniable  doctrine,  that  man  is  without  strength  for  the  achieve- 
ment of  so  mighty  an  enterprise.  Can  you  tell  us  any  plain  and 
practicable  thing  that  you  would  have  us  to  perform,  and  that  we 
may  perform  to  help  on  this  business  ?  This  is  the  very  question 
with  which  the  hearers  of  John  the  Baptist  came  back  upon  him, 
after  he  had  told  them  in  general  terms  to  repent,  and  to  bring 
forth  fruits  meet  for  repentance.  He  may  not  have  resolved  the 
difficulty,  but  he  pointed  the  expectations  of  his  countrymen  to  a 
greater  than  he  for  the  solution  of  it;  Now  that  Teacher  has 
already  come,  and  we  live  under  the  full  and  the  finished  splendor 
of  His  revelation.  O  that  the  greatness  and  difficulty  of  the 
work  of  repentance,  had  the  effect  of  shutting  you  up  into  the 
faith  of  Christ !  Repentance  is  not  a  paltry,  superficial  reforma- 
tion. It  reaches  deep  into  the  inner  man,  but  not  too  deep  for  the 
searching  influences  of  that  Spirit  which  is  at  His  giving,  and 
which  worketh  mightily  in  the  hearts  of  believers.  You  should 
go  then  under  a  sense  of  your  difficulty  to  Him.  Seek  to  be 
rooted  in  the  Saviour,  that  you  may  be  nourished  out  of  His  ful- 
ness, and  strengthened  by  His  might.  The  simple  cry  for  a  clean 
heart,  and  a  right  spirit,  which  is  raised  from  the  mouth  of  a  be- 
liever, brings  down  an  answer  from  on  high,  which  explains  all 
the  difficulty  and  overcomes  it.  And  if  what  we  have  said  of  the 
extent  and  magnitude  of  repentance,  shbuld  have  the  effect  to 
give  a  deeper  feeling  than  before  of  the  wants  under  which  you 
labor;  and  shall  dispose  you  to  seek. after  a  closer  and  more  ha- 
bitual union  with  Him  who  alone  can  supply  them,  then  will  our 
call  to  repent  have  indeed  fulfilled  upon  you  the  appointed  end  of  a 


284  CALL    TO    THE    UNCONVERTED. 

preparation  for  the  Saviour.  But  recollect  now  is  your  time,"and 
now  is  your  opportunity,  for  entering  on  the  road  of  preparation 
that  leads  to  heaven.  We  charge  you  to  enter  this  road  at  this 
moment,  as  you  value  your  deliverance  from  hell,  and  your  pos- 
session of  that  blissful  place  where  you  shall  be  forever  with  the 
Lord — we  charge  you  not  to  parry  and  to  delay  this  matter,  no, 
not  for  a  single  hour — we  call  on  you  by  all  that  is  great  in  eter- 
nity— by  all  "that  is  terrifying  in  its  horrors — by  all  that  is  alluring 
in  its  rewards — by  all  that  is  binding  in  the  authority  of  God — by 
all  that  is  condemning  in  the  severity  of  His  violated  law,  and  by 
all  that  can  aggravate  this  condemnation  in  the  insulting  contempt 
of  His  rejected  Gospel  ; — we  call  on  you  by  one  and  all  of  these 
considerations,  not  to  hesitate  but  to  flee — not  to  purpose  a  return 
for  to-morrow,  but  to  make  an  actual  return  this  very  day — to  put 
a  decisive  end  to  every  plan  of  wickedness  on  which  you  may 
have  entered — to  cease  your  hands  from  all  that  is  forbidden — to 
turn  them  to  all  that  is  required — to  betake  yourselves  to  the  ap- 
pointed Mediator,  and  receive  through  Him,  by  the  prayer  of 
faith,  such  constant  supplies  of  the  washing  of  regeneration  and 
renewing  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  that,  from  this  moment,  you  may  be 
carried  forward  from  one  degree  of  grace  unto  another,  and  from 
a  life  devoted  to  God  here,  to  the  elevation  of  a  triumphant,  and 
the  joys  of  a  blissful  eternity,  hereafter. 


INTRODUCTORY  ESSAY 

TO   THE 

CHRISTIAN'S    DAILY    WALK 

IX  HOLY  SECURITY  AXD  PEACE. 
BY    THE    REV-    HENRY    SCUDDER. 


It  is  well  known,  that  though  Christianity  was  persecuted  by 
the  Jews  from  the  very  outset  of  its  promulgation,  it  was  some 
time  before  this  religion  provoked  the  wrath  or  the  intolerance  of 
the  Romans.  The  truth  is.  that  on  the  part  of  the  government  at 
Rome,  there  was  a  very  general  connivance  at  religion  in  all  its 
numerous  varieties.  And  the  reason  of  this  was,  that  under  the 
system  of  Paganism  no  one  variety,  or  modification,  was  thought 
to  exclude  another.  Each  country  was  conceived  to  have  its  lo- 
cal deity — and  each  element  of  Xature  to  have  its  own  pervading 
spirit — and  each  new  god  of  the  provinces  over  which  they  ex- 
tended their  power,  offered  no  disturbance  to  the  habits  of  their 
previous  theology,  but  was  easily  disposed  of  by  the  bare  addition 
of  another  name  to  the  catalogue.  At  this  rate  there  was  no  con- 
flict and  no  interference.  By  learning  the  religion  of  another 
country,  they  simply  extended  their  acquaintance  with  the  world 
of  supernatural  beings ;  just  as  by  the  conquest  of  that  country, 
they  extended  their  acquaintance  with  the  visible  and  the  peopled 
world  around  them.  In  such  a  capacious  and  elastic  creed  as  that 
of  Paganism,  there  was  room  enough  for  all  the  superstitions  of 
all  people.  The  sincerest  possible  homage  for  the  gods  of  one 
territory,  admitted  of  an  homage  equally  sincere  for  the  gods  of 
another  territory.  Nay,  by  the  same  solemn  act  of  worship,  they 
may,  each  and  all  of  them,  have  been  included,  at  one  time,  in  one 
general  expression  of  faith  and  reverence.  And  this  is  the  whole 
amount  of  the  boasted  tolerance  of  antiquity. 

We  may  easily  perceive,  how,  in  exception  to  this  general  spirit, 
Christianity,  from  being  the  object  of  lenity,  and  even  of  occasional 
protection  by  the  Roman  power,  soon  became  the  victim  of  its 
fiercest  persecutions.  For  a  few  years,  its  character  and  preten- 
sions were  not  distinctly  understood.     It  seems  in  truth  to  have 


286  christian's  daily  walk. 

been  regarded  as  a  mere  speciality  of  Judaism,  and  even  though 
it  had  partaken  of  all  the  narrowness  of  the  parent  religion  from 
which  it  sprung,  yet  would  it  have  continued  to  share  in  the  same 
immunities,  had  it  maintained  the  same  indolent  contempt  for  the 
idolatry  of  the  surrounding  nations.  But  when  it  made  a  farther 
development  of  its  spirit ;  when  it  began  to  be  felt  in  the  force  of 
its  active  proselytism  ;  when  it  was  seen,  that  it  not  only  admitted 
of  no  compromise  with  the  articles  of  another  faith,  but  that  it 
aimed  at  the  overthrow  of  every  religion  then  in  the  world  ;  when 
men  at  last  perceived,  that  instead  of  quietly  taking  its  place 
among  their  much-loved  superstitions,  it  threatened  the  destruc- 
tion of  them  all, — then,  though  truth  and  argument  were  its  only 
weapons,  did  the  success  with  which  they  were  wielded  as  much 
offend  and  terrify  the  world  as  if  they  hadbeen  the  weapons  of  or- 
dinary warfare ;  and  though  Jesus  Christ  would  have  been  wel- 
comed to  a  share  of  divine  honors  along  with  other  deities,  were 
his  followers  resisted  even  unto  blood,  when  they  advanced  his 
claim,  not  to  be  added  to  the  list  of  those  deities,  but  utterly  to 
discard  and  dethrone  them. 

Now  it  may  be  thought  that  there  can  be  nothing  analogous  to 
this  process  in  the  present  day,  and  within  the  limits  of  Christen- 
dom. But  the  truth  is,  that  what  obtained  among  the  literal  idol- 
aters of  a  former  age,  is  still  more  strikingly  exemplified  by  those 
of  the  present,  who,  in  the  spiritual  and  substantial  sense  of  the 
word,  are  chargeable  with  the  whole  guilt  of  idolatry.  There 
may  be  among  us  the  most  complacent  toleration  for  a  mitigated 
and  misconceived  Christianity,  while  there  is  no  toleration  what- 
ever for  the  real  Christianity  of  the  New  Testament.  So  long  as 
it  only  claims  an  assigned  place  in  the  history  of  man,  while  it 
leaves  the  heart  of  man  in  the  undisturbed  possession  of  all  its 
native  and  inborn  propensities — so  long  as  it  confines  itself  to  the 
demand  of  a  little  room  for  its  Sabbaths  and  its  decencies,  while 
it  leaves  the  general  system  of  human  life  to  move  as  before,  at 
the  impulse  of  those  old  principles  which  have  characterized  the 
mind  of  man  throughout  all  the  generations  of  the  world — so  long 
as  it  exacts  no  more  than  an  occasional  act  of  devotion,  while  it 
suffers  the  objects  of  wealth  and  fame,  and  temporal  enjoyments, 
to  be  prosecuted  with  as  intense  and  habitual  a  devotion  as  ever — 
above  all,  so  long  as  the  services  which  it  imposes  are  not  other 
than  the  services  which  would  have  been  rendered  at  all  events 
to  the  idol  of  interest,  or  the  idol  of  reputation, — then  Christianity, 
so  far  from  being  the  object  of  any  painful  recoil  on  the  part  of 
man,  is  looked  upon,  by  very  many  in  society,  as  a  seemly  and 
most  desirable  appendage  to  the  whole  mass  of  their  other  con- 
cerns. It  is  admitted  to  fill  up  what  would  be  felt  as  a  disagree- 
able vacuity.  The  man  would  positively  be  out  of  comfort,  and 
out  of  adjustment,  without  it.  Meagre  as  his  Christianity  may  be, 
the  omission  of  certain  of  its  rites,  and  certain  of  its  practices,  would 


christian's  daily  walk.  287 

give  him  uneasiness.  It  has  its  own  place  in  the  round  of  his  af- 
fairs, and  though  what  remains  of  the  round  is  described  very 
much  in  the  way  it  would  have  been,  had  there  been  no  Christi- 
anity in  the  matter,  yet  would  the  entire  and  absolute  want  of  it 
make  him  feel  as  if  the  habit  of  his  life  had  undergone  a  mutila- 
tion, as  if  the  completeness  of  his  practical  system  had  suffered 
violence. 

And  thus  it  is,  that  Christianity,  in  a  moderate  and  superficial 
form,  may  be  gladly  acquiesced  in,  while  Christianity  after  it 
comes  to  be  understood  in  the  magnitude  of  its  pretensions  may 
be  utterly  nauseated.  When  it  offers  to  disturb  the  deep  habit 
and  repose  of  nature — when  instead  of  taking  its  place  among  the 
other  concerns  and  affections  of  a  disciple,  it  proceeds  to  subordi- 
nate them  all — when  instead  of  laying  claim  to  a  share  of  human 
life,  it  lays  claim  to  the  sovereignty  over  it — when  not  satisfied 
with  the  occasional  homage  of  its  worshippers,  it  casts  a  superin- 
tending eye  over  their  hearts,  and  their  business,  and  their  lives, 
and  pronounces  of  every  desire  which  is  separate  from  the  will 
and  the  glory  of  God,  that  it  is  tainted  with  the  sin  of  idolatry, — 
when  it  thus  proposes  to  search  and  to  spiritualize,  with  the  view 
of  doing  away  all  that  is  old,  and  of  making  everything  new,  an- 
cient Rome  was  never  more  in  arms  for  her  gods,  than  modern 
humanity  is  in  arms  for  her  obstinate  habits,  and  her  longing  pro- 
pensities. And  yet  if  Christianity  would  tolerate  nature,  nature 
would  in  return  tolerate  Christianity.  She  would  even  offer  to 
her  the  compromise  of  many  hours  and  many  services.  She 
would  build  temples  to  her  honor,  and  be  present  at  all  her  sacra- 
ments. We  behold  an  exhibition  of  this  sort  every  day  among 
the  decent  and  orderly  professors  of  our  faith ;  and  it  is  not  till 
this  antipathy  be  provoked  by  a  full  disclosure  of  the  spirit  and 
exactions  of  the  Gospel,  that  the  whole  extent  of  that  antipathy 
is  known. 

We  may  expatiate  on  the  social  or  civil  virtues,  such  as  justice, 
for  example,  without  coming  into  collision  with  the  antipathies  of 
nature.  Even  worldliness  herself  may  listen  with  an  approving 
ear  to  the  most  rigid  demonstration  of  this  virtue.  For  though 
justice  be  a  required  offering  at  the  shrine  of  the  Gospel  of  Jesus 
Christ,  it  may  also  be,  and  it  often  is,  both  a  required  and  a  rendered 
offering  at  the  shrine  of  honor  and  interest.  The  truth  is,  that  a 
man  may  have  his  heart  fully  set  upon  the  world ;  and  a  portion 
on  this  side  of  time  may  be  the  object  in  which  he  rests,  and  upon 
which  all  his  desires  do  terminate ;  and  yet  he  may  not  feel  him- 
self painfully  thwarted  at  all  by  the  demand  of  an  honesty  the 
most  strict  and  inviolable.  A  compliance  with  this  demand  may 
not  break  up  his  other  idolatries  in  the  least.  In  the  practice  of  a 
truth  and  an  integrity  as  unlimited  as  any  law  of  God  can  impose, 
may  he  be  borne  rejoicingly  along  on  the  full  tide  of  prosperity ; 
and  by  every  new  accession  to  his  wealth,  be  multiplying  the  ties 


288  christian's  daily  walk. 

which  fasten  him  to  the  world.  There  is  many  an  intense  votary 
of  gain,  who  will  bear  to  be  told  that  he  should  be  perfectly  fair 
and  upright  in  the  prosecution  of  it,  and  who  will  not  bear  to  be 
told,  that  the  very  intensity  of  this  prosecution  marks  him  out  as 
a  child  of  earthliness — makes  it  manifest,  that  he  is  striking  all  his 
roots  into  a  perishable  foundation — proves  him  to  be  the  victim 
of  a  disease,  the  symptoms  of  which  lie  much  deeper  than  in  his 
external  conduct — proves  him,  in  short,  to  be  unsound  at  heart, 
and  that,  with  a  principle  of  life,  which  will  survive  the  dissolution 
of  all  that  is  visible,  he,  in  strenuously  laboring  after  its  fancied 
interest,  is  fast  heaping  upon  it  the  wretchedness  of  eternity.  That 
morality  which  barely  ventures  to  regulate  the  path  that  he  is  now 
walking  towards  the  objects  of  this  world's  ambition,  he  will  tole- 
rate and  applaud.  But  the  morality  which  denounces  the  ambi- 
tion, the  morality  which  would  root  out  the  very  feelings  that 
hurry  him  onwards  in  the  path  ;  which  bids  him  mortify  his 
affections  for  all  that  this  world  has  to  offer ;  which  tells  him  not 
to  set  his  mind  on  any  created  thing,  but  to  set  his  mind  on  the 
Creator,  and  to  have  nothing  farther  to  do  with  the  world,  than 
as  a  place  of  passage  and  preparation  for  an  abode  of  blessedness 
in  heaven, — the  morality  which  tells  him  to  cease  his  attachment 
from  those  things  with  which  he  has  linked  the  ruling  desires,  and 
all  the  practical  energies  of  his  existence, — such  morality  as  this, 
he  will  resist  with  as  much  strenuousness  as  he  would  do  a  pro- 
cess of  annihilation.  The  murderer  who  offers  to  destroy  his  life 
will  not  be  shrunk  from  in  greater  horror,  or  withstood  in  a  firmer 
spirit  of  determination,  than  the  moralist  who  would  force  from 
him  the  surrender  of  affections  which  seem  to  be  interwoven  with 
his  very  being,  and  the  indulgence  of  which  has  conferred  upon  it 
all  the  felicities  of  which  he  has  yet  experienced  it  to  be  capable. 
A  revolution  so  violent  looks  as  repulsive  as  death  to  the  natural 
man ;  and  it  is  also  represented  under  the  image  of  death  in  the 
Scripture.  To  cease  from  the  desire  of  the  eye,  is  to  him  a  change 
as  revolting  as  to  have  the  light  of  the  eye  extinguished.  To  cease 
from  the  desire  of  the  flesh,  is  to  crucify  the  flesh.  To  cease  from 
the  pride  of  life,  is  to  renounce  the  life  of  nature  altogether.  In 
a  word,  to  cease  from  the  desire  of  the  old  man,  is  not  to  turn, 
but  to  destroy  him.  It  is  to  have  him-buried  with  Christ  in  bap- 
tism. It  is  to  have  him  planted  together  with  Christ  in  the  like- 
ness of  his  death.  It  is  not  to  impress  a  movement,  but  to  inflict 
a  mortification. 

But  there  is  another  very  general  misapprehension  of  peculiar 
Christianity,  as  if  it  dispensed  with  service  on  the  part  of  its  disci- 
ples: as  if  it  had  set  aside  the  old  law  of  works,  and  thus  super- 
seded the  necessity  of  working  altogether;  as  if,  in  some  way  or 
other,  it  substituted  a  kind  of  lofty  mysticism  in  the  place  of  that 
plain  obedience  which  is  laid  down  for  us  by  the  ten  command- 
ments— sweeping  away  from  its  new  dispensation  the  moralities 


CHRISTIAN  a    DAILY    WALK.  289 


and  observances  of  the  old  one,  and  leaving  nothing  in  their  place 
but  a  kind  of  cabalistic  orthodoxy  known  only  to  the  initiated 
few,  and  with  the  formal  profession  of  which  they  look  mightily 
safe  and  mightily  satisfied. 

Now  we  cannot  become  acquainted  with  Christianity  without 
perceiving,  that  after  the  transition  has  been  made  from  the  old 
economy  to  the  new,  there  is  a  service.  This  transition  is  signi- 
fied by  images  expressive  of  the  total  change  that  is  made  in  our 
relations  and  circumstances,  when  we  pass  from  Nature  to  the 
Gospel — as  the  dissolution  of  a  first  marriage,  and  the  entrance 
upon  a  second — a  dying  and  a  coming  alive  again — a  release  from 
one  master,  even  the  law,  who  formerly  had  the  dominion  over 
us,  and  an  engagement  with  another  Master,  even  God,  under 
whom  we  are  to  bring  forth  the  fruit  that  is  lovely  and  acceptable 
in  his  sight — all  marking  the  very  wide  dissimilarity  that  there  is 
between  the  two  states,  and  that  when  we  have  crossed  the  line 
of  separation  between  them,  we  have  indeed  got  into  another  re- 
gion, and  breathe  another  atmosphere  altogether  from  what  we  did 
formerly — and  yet  there  continues  to  subsist  a  service,  performed, 
no  doubt,  in  a  different  spirit  and  in  a  different  manner  from  what 
it  was  before,  but  still  a  service.  And  indeed  it  is  quite  manifest, 
from  the  apostolical  writings,  that  the  life  of  a  Christian  is  ex- 
pected to  be  all  in  a  glow  with  labor  and  exertion,  and  manifold 
activity — not  spent  in  the  indolence  of  mystic  contemplation,  but 
abounding  in  work,  and  work  too  persevered  in  with  immovable 
steadfastness,  and  emanating  from  a  zeal  that  ever  actuates  and 
ever  urges  on  to  the  performance  of  it.  This  is  the  habit  of  a  dis- 
ciple upon  earth,  and  it  would  appear  to  be  his  habit  even  after  he 
is  transported  into  heaven :  "  There  thy  servants  serve  thee." 
So  that  whether  we  look  to  those  years  which  are  preparatory  to 
our  entering  upon  the  inheritance  of  glory,  or  to  the  eternity  in 
which  the  inheritance  itself  is  enjoyed,  still  we  find  that  under  the 
economy  of  grace  there  is  a  busy,  strenuous  and  ever-doing  ser- 
vice. It  is  not  in  fact  by  exemption  from  service,  but  by  the  new 
spirit  and  principle  wherewith  the  service  is  actuated,  that  the 
economy  of  grace  stands  distinguished  from  the  economy  of  the 
law.  We  are  delivered  from  the  law,  not  that  we  should  be  de- 
livered from  the  service  of  obedience,  but  that  we  should  serve 
in  newness  of  spirit,  and  not  in  the  oldness  of  the  letter. 

The  first  remark  that  we  offer,  in  the  way  of  illustrating  this 
distinction  between  the  new  and  the  old  economy,  is,  that  there  is 
indeed  a  very  different  spirit  between  two  men,  one  of  whom 
works,  and  that  most  incessantly,  from  the  love  that  he  bears  to 
the  wages,  and  the  other  of  whom  works,  and  that  just  as  inces- 
santly, from  the  unconquerable  taste  and  affection  which  he  has 
for  the  work  itself.  It  is  conceivable  that  the  servant  of  some 
lordly  proprietor,  is  remunerated  according  to  the  quantity  of  game 
which  he  fetches  from  the  woods  and  the  wastes  of  that  ample 

37 


290  christian's  daily  walk. 

domain  over  which  he  expatiates — and  that,  under  the  dominion 
of  a  thirst  for  lucre,  from  morning  to  night  he  gives  himself  up  to 
the  occupation  of  a  hunter.  But  it  is  conceivable  of  another,  that 
the  romance,  and  adventure,  and  spirit-stirring  hazard  and  variety 
of  such  a  life,  are  enough  to  fasten  him,  and  that  most  intently, 
throughout  all  the  hours  of  the  day,  on  the  very  same  enterprise: 
and  thus,  with  a  perfect  likeness  in  the  outward  habit,  may  there 
be  in  the  habit  and  desire  of  the  heart  a  total  and  entire  dissimi- 
larity. The  service  is  the  same,  but  the  spirit  of  the  service  is 
widely  dissimilar.  And  this  may  just  hold  as  true  of  the  com- 
mandments of  a  heavenly,  as  of  an  earthly  master.  The  children 
of  Israel  looked  to  the  decalogue  that  was  graven  upon  tablets  of 
stone,  and  they  knew  that  on  their  observation  of  it  depended  their 
possession  of  the  land  of  Canaan,  the  prosperity  of  their  seasons, 
and  the  peace  of  their  habitations  from  the  inroad  of  desolating 
enemies.  The  love  they  bore  to  their  inheritance,  is  love  quite 
distinguishable  from  the  love  they  bore  to  that  task  which  formed 
the  tenor  upon  which  they  held  it — and  it  may  just  be  as  distin- 
guishable in  him  who  seeks  to  purchase,  by  his  obedience,  the 
heavenly  Canaan  set  forth  to  us  in  the  Gospel,  and  who  thinks  of 
this  Canaan  as  a  place  of  splendor,  and  music,  and  physical  grati- 
fications ;  who  looks  onward  in  fancy  to  its  groves  and  its  pal- 
aces, or  who,  as  it  stands  revealed  in  perspective  before  him,  on 
the  other  side  of  death,  figures  it  at  large  as  a  place  of  general 
and  boundless  enjoyment,  where  pleasure  ever  circulates  in  tides 
of  ecstacy,  and  at  least  there  is  a  secure  and  everlasting  escape 
from  the  horrors  of  the  place  of  condemnation.  A  love  for  the 
work,  and  a  love  for  the  wages,  are  here  two  different  affections 
altogether ;  and  to  reduce  them  to  one,  you  must  present  heaven 
in  its  true  character,  as  a  place  of  constant  and  unwearied  obedi- 
ence. The  Israelite  toiling  in  drudgery  at  the  work  of  his  ordi- 
nances, and  that  for  the  purpose  of  retaining  his  pleasant  home  on 
this  side  of  death — or  the  formal  Christian  walking  the  routine  of 
his  ordinances,  and  that  for  the  purpose  of  reaching  a  pleasant 
home  on  the  other  side  of  death — either  of  them  breathes  a  totally 
different  spirit  from  the  man  who  finds  the  work  of  obedience 
itself  to  be  indeed  a  way  of  pleasantness  and  a  path  of  delight  to 
him — who,  without  the  bidding  of  his  master  at  all,  would,  at  the 
bidding  of  his  own  heart,  just  move  his  hand  as  his  master  would 
have  him  to  do — who  is  in  his  element  when  engaged  in  the  work 
of  the  commandments,  and  to  whose  renovated  taste  and  faculties 
of  moral  sensation,  the  atmosphere  of  righteousness  is  in  itself  the 
atmosphere  of  peace  and  joy. 

The  services  of  two  men  may  thus  externally  be  the  same,  and 
yet,  the  spirit  that  animates  the  one  and  the  other  may  just  be  as 
different,  as  sordidness  and  sacredness  are  wide  of  one  another. 
And  a  difference  of  spirit  is  everything  to  Him  with  whom  we 
have  to  do.     He  sits  at  the  head  of  a  moral  empire  ;  and  aflec- 


CHRISTIANS    DAILY    WALK.  291 

tion,  and  motive,  and  design  are  mainly  the  things  of  which  he 
takes  cognizance  ;  and  discerner  of  hearts  as  he  is,  it  is  the  de- 
sire of  the  heart  upon  which  he  fastens  his  chief  attention ;  and 
in  his  judgment  it  is  indeed  a  question  most  decisive  of  character 
whether  this  actuating  desire  be  love  to  the  work  of  righteous- 
ness, or  only  love  to  wages  distinct  from  the  work.  To  serve  in 
the  first  of  these  ways,  is  to  serve  in  the  newness  of  the  spirit. 
To  serve  in  the  second  of  them,  is  to  serve  in  the  oldness  of  the 
letter  ;  and  the  substitution  of  the  one  for  the  other,  is  that  great 
achievement  which  the  Gospel  personally  and  substantially  makes 
on  every  man  who  truly  embraces  it.  It  forms  as  essential  a  part 
of  that  covenant  which  God  makes  with  the  believer  as  does  the 
forgiveness  of  sin.  "  This  is  the  covenant,  that  I  will  put  my  law 
in  his  heart."  When  it  only  stood  graven  upon  a  table  of  stone, 
obedience  was  an  affair  of  labor.  But  when  the  law  is  graven  on 
the  fleshly  tablet  of  the  heart,  obedience  is  an  affair  of  love.  It  is 
everything  to  God  whether  his  service  be  felt  by  us  as  the 
drudgery  of  a  task,  or  as  the  delight  of  a  congenial  employment 
— whether  we  painfully  toil  while  it  is  doing,  and  are  glad  when  it 
is  over — or  are  pleasantly  carried  along,  through  all  the  steps  of 
it,  as  of  a  work  that  we  rejoice  in — whether  it  be  our  hope,  that 
after  the  keeping  of  the  commandments  there  will  be  a  great  re- 
ward, or  it  be  our  happy  and  present  sensation,  that  in  the  keep- 
ing of  the  commandments  there  is  a  great  reward.  It  is  this 
which  distinguishes  the  service  of  our  heavenly  from  that  of  our 
earthly  master.  With  the  latter,  after  the  work  cometh  the  pay- 
ment, and  the  doing  of  the  one  is  a  distinct  and  separate  thing 
from  the  enjoyment  of  the  other.  With  the  former,  after  the 
work  done  now,  cometh  more  work  ;  after  the  business  of  using 
aright  a  few  talents,  cometh  the  business  of  ruling  and  of  managing 
aright  many  things  ;  after  the  praises  and  the  services  of  the 
church  below,  come  the  higher  services,  and  more  ecstatic  praises, 
of  the  sanctuary  above  ;  after  the  uprightness  and  the  piety  of 
our  present  lives,  cometh  the  busy  obedience  of  that  everlasting 
land,  which  is  called  the  land  of  uprightness :  and  how  totally 
different  then  must  the  newness  of  the  spirit  be  from  the  oldness 
of  the  letter  ;  when,  as  with  the  one,  the  work  is  gone  through 
from  the  mere  impulse  of  a  subsequent  reward,  which  selfishness 
may  seize  upon  and  appropriate  to  its  own  indulgence,  so  with  the 
other,  the  work  is  gone  through  from  the  impulse  of  its  own  native 
charm  on  the  heart  and  taste  of  the  delighted  laborer,  who  is 
happy  in  the  service  of  God  here,  and  whose  brightest  anticipa- 
tion is,  that  he  shall  be  translated  into  the  capacity  of  serving  him 
more  constantly  and  perfectly  hereafter  ! 

But,  secondly,  to  do  the  work,  because  of  the  love  that  we  bear 
to  the  wages  which  our  master  gives  us,  is  doing  service  in  a  spirit 
altogether  different  from  that  of  doing  the  work  because  of  the 
love  that  we  bear  to  the  master  himself.     The  set  and  tendency 


292  christian's  daily  walk. 

of  the  heart  are  altogether  distinct  in  the  one  case  from  what 
they  are  in  the  other.  In  the  first  way  of  it,  the  heart  is  set  alto- 
gether upon  its  own  gratification,  and  is  under  the  entire  dominion 
of  selfishness.  In  the  second  way  of  it,  it  is  set  upon  the  gratifi- 
cation of  another.  The  two  are  as  distinct,  as  is  the  spirit  of  him 
who  labors  with  the  reluctancy  of  a  slave,  from  the  spirit  of  him 
who  labors  with  the  devotedness  of  a  generous  and  disinterested 
friend.  Now  this  is  a  change  in  the  style  and  spirit  of  our  obe- 
dience, which  it  is  the  object  of  Christianity  to  accomplish.  To 
serve  God  in  the  oldness  of  the  letter  is  to  eke  out  by  tale  and  by 
measure  a  certain  quantity  of  work  which  we  offer  as  an  incense 
to  his  selfishness — and  in  return  for  which  he  deals  forth  upon  us 
a  certain  amount  of  wages  as  a  regale  to  our  selfishness  back 
again — with  as  little  of  heart  all  the  while  in  such  an  exchange, 
as  there  is  in  the  trafficking  of  mutual  interest  and  mutual  jealousy 
which  takes  place  at  a  market.  There  is  no  love  between  the  par- 
ties—no generous  delight  in  ministering  the  one  to  the  satisfac- 
tion of  the  other — no  pleasure  in  pleasing — no  play  of  a  recipro- 
cal affection — no  happiness  felt  from  the  single  circumstance  that 
happiness  has  been  bestowed.  If  this  be  the  character  of  our 
service  under  the  law,  there  is  surely  room  for  a  mighty  amend- 
ment, or  rather  for  a  total  revolution,  of  its  spirit  and  principle 
under  the  Gospel.  Even  had  the  law  been  rigidly  kept  on  the 
side  of  man,  and  its  stipulations  been  rigidly  fulfilled  on  the  part 
of  God,  there  would  still  have  been  a  coldness,  and  a  distance, 
and  a  tone  of  demand,  on  the  one  side,  and  a  certain  fearfulness 
of  diffidence  and  distrust  on  the  other,  under  such  an  economy. 
But  the  fact  is,  that  the  law  has  not  been  kept ;  and  the  conscious- 
ness of  this  perpetually  overhung  the  wretched  aspirant  after  a 
righteousness  which  he  never  could  fulfil ;  and  he  felt  himself 
haunted  at  every  footstep  of  his  exertions  by  the  fear  of  a  reck- 
oning ;  still  floundering  however,  while  failing  at  every  turn,  and 
burdened  in  spirit  by  a  heavy  and  enfeebling  sense  of  despair. 
And  that  Being  can  never  be  regarded  with  joy,  who  is  regarded 
with  jealousy.  It  is  impossible  that  terror  and  love  can  both  exist 
in  the  same  bosom  towards  the  same  God.  It  is  not  in  sentient 
nature  to  feel  affection  towards  one  of  whom  we  are  afraid — and 
so  long  as  the  controversy  of  tasks  undone,  and  accounts  un- 
paid, remained  unsettled,  there  was  no  getting  at  affection  tow- 
ards God.  In  these  circumstances,  the  history  of  man  might  be 
covered  all  over  with  deeds  of  religiousness,  but  the  heart  of  man 
is  bound  as  to  its  desires  and  likings,  with  a  spell  that  is  utterly 
indissoluble.  It  is  frozen  out  of  all  love,  by  the  chilling  influences 
of  distrust,  and  terror,  and  guilty  consciousness.  He  would  fain 
propitiate  God  for  the  sake  of  his  own  security,  but  he  is  too 
much  engrossed  with  himself  to  care  about  pleasing  God  for 
the  mere  sake  of  pleasing  Him.  Obedience  on  such  a  principle 
as  this,  appears  to  lie  at  an  immeasurable  distance  from  him ;  and 


CHRISTIAN  S    DAILY    WALK.  293 

if  he  does  persevere  in  a  sort  of  religious  drudgery,  done  in  bond- 
age, and  done  in  slavish  apprehension,  it  is  the  obedience  of  one 
who  serves  in  the  oldness  of  the  letter,  but  not  in  the  newness  of 
the  spirit. 

Now  to  effect  a  transformation  in  the  spirit  of  our  services  was 
one  great  design  of  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ — not  to  abolish 
service,  we  should  remark,  but  to  animate  it  with  a  new  principle 
■ — not  to  set  aside  work,  but  to  strike  out  a  pure  and  copious 
fountain  in  the  heart,  from  which  it  might  emanate — to  strike  off 
those  fetters  by  which  the  moral  and  sentient  nature  of  man  was 
linked,  as  to  all  affection  for  the  Godhead,  in  a  kind  of  dull  and 
heavy  imprisonment — and  bid  those  feelings  which  had  long  been 
pent  and  stifled  in  imprisonment  there,  go  freely  forth,  both  with 
trust  and  with  tenderness,  to  the  Father  from  whom  we  had  been 
so  sadly  alienated.  For  this  purpose  a  Mediator  was  appointed, 
and  the  account  now  taken  up  and  discharged  by  him,  is  no  longer 
against  us — and  for  our  sins,  we  are  told,  if  we  would  only  give 
credit  to  the  saying,  we  shall  no  more  be  reckoned  with — and  the 
Deity  reveals  Himself  in  a  new  aspect  of  invitation  to  His  crea- 
tures, and  just  that  he  may  awaken  the  new  affections  of  confi- 
dence and  love  in  their  before  fearful  and  suspicious  bosoms.  We 
cannot  love  God  in  the  face  of  a  debt  uncancelled  and  of  a  sen- 
tence unrecalled,  and  of  a  threatening  that  is  still  in  force  against 
us,  and  of  mighty  and  majestic  attributes  all  leagued  for  their  own 
vindication  to  the  object  of  destroying  us.  But  we  can  love  God 
when  we  are  told,  and  we  believe  what  is  told  of  the  ransom  that 
is  paid,  and  of  the  sentence  and  the  threatening  being  all  already 
spent  on  the  agonies  of  another's  endurance,  and  of  His  attributes 
aroused  to  vengeance  because  of  sin,  now  pacified  because  of  a 
sacrifice — so  that  mercy  is  free  to  send  forth  her  beseeching  calls, 
and,  emancipated  from  the  claims  of  truth  and  justice,  can  now 
abundantly  rejoice  over  all  the  works  and  perfections  of  the  God- 
head. The  cross  of  Jesus  Christ  is  not  merely  the  place  of  break- 
ing forth  into  peace  and  reconciliation,  but  it  is  also  the  place  of 
breaking  forth  into  the  love  and  new  obedience  of  a  regenerated 
nature.  He  who  hath  blotted  out  the  handwriting  of  ordinances 
that  was  against  us,  which  was  contrary  to  us,  and  took  it  out  of 
the  way,  nailing  it  to  His  cross — it  is  He  who  hath  slain  in  our 
hearts  their  enmity  against  God — and  now  that  we  can  love  God 
because  He  first  loved  us,  and  sent  His  Son  into  the  world  to  be 
the  propitiation  for  our  sins — now,  and  now  only,  can  we  serve 
Him  in  the  newness  of  the  spirit,  and  not  in  the  oldness  of  the 
letter. 

It  should  be  our  aim  then  to  keep  our  hearts  in  the  love  of  God 
— and  this  can  only  be  done  by  keeping  in  memory  the  love  that 
He  hath  borne  unto  us.  With  this  affection  all  alive  in  our  bosoms, 
and  seeking  how  most  to  please  and  to  gratify  the  Being  whom  it 
regards — let  us  never  forget  that  this  is  His  will,  even  our  sancti- 


294  christian's  daily  walk. 

fication  :  that  like  as  He  rejoiced  at  the  birth  of  nature,  when,  on 
the  work  being  accomplished,  He  looked  upon  everything  that 
He  had  made,  and  saw  in  the  beauty,  and  luxuriance,  and  variety, 
which  had  just  emerged  from  His  hands,  that  all  was  very  good — 
in  like  manner,  and  much  more,  does  He  rejoice  in  that  new  cre- 
ation, by  which  moral  loveliness,  and  harmony,  and  order,  are 
made  to  emerge  out  of  the  chaos  of  our  present  degeneracy.  The 
righteous  Lord  loveth  righteousness,  and  the  spectacle  of  our 
worth  and  excellence  is  to  Him  a  pleasing  spectacle — and  what 
He  wants  is,  to  form  and  to  multiply,  by  the  regenerative  power 
of  His  Spirit,  the  specimens  of  a  beauty  far  higher  in  kind  than 
all  that  can  be  exhibited  on  the  face  of  visible  nature :  and  our 
truth  and  our  charity,  and  our  deep  repentance  for  sin,  and  our 
ceaseless  aspirations  after  loftier  degrees  of  purity  and  godliness — 
these  imprint  so  many  additional  features  of  gracefulness  on  that 
spiritual  creation  over  which  the  holiness  of  His  character  most 
inclines  Him  to  rejoice ;  and  we  knowing  that  this  is  the  mind  of 
the  Deity,  and  loving  to  gratify  the  Being  whom  we  love,  are 
furnished  with  a  principle  of  obedience,  more  generous,  and  far 
more  productive  of  the  fruits  of  righteousness,  than  the  legal  prin- 
ciple, which  only  seeks  to  be  square  with  the  Lawgiver,  and  safe 
from  the  thunders  of  His  violated  authority.  There  is  no  limitation 
to  such  an  obedience.  The  ever-urging  principle  of  love  to  God 
is  sure  at  all  times  to  stimulate  and  to  extend  it :  and  what  with 
a  sense  of  delight  to  the  work  itself,  and  with  the  sense  that  God 
whom  we  love  delights  in  the  work  also  and  rejoices  over  it.  is 
there  a  newness  of  spirit  given  to  obedience  under  the  economy 
of  the  Gospel,  altogether  diverse  from  the  oldness  of  the  letter, 
which  obtained  under  the  economy  of  nature  and  of  the  law. 

But,  thirdly,  there  is  nothing  perhaps  that  will  better  illustrate 
the  distinction  between  service  rendered  in  the  newness  of  the 
spirit,  and  service  rendered  in  the  oldness  of  the  letter,  than  one 
simple  reflection  upon  what  that  is  which  is  the  great  object  of 
the  dispensation  we  sit  under — to  be  made  like  unto  God,  like  unto 
Him  in  righteousness,  and  like  unto  Him  in  true  holiness.  Now 
just  think  what  the  righteousness  of  God  is  like.  Is  it  righteous- 
ness in  submission  to  the  authority  of  a  law?  Is  it  righteousness 
painfully  and  laboriously  wrought  out,  with  a  view  to  reward  ? 
Is  it  righteousness  in  pursuit  of  any  one  pleasure  or  gratification 
that  is  at  all  distinct  from  the  pleasure  which  the  Divinity  has  in 
the  very  righteousness  itself?  Does  not  He  desire  righteousness 
simply  because  He  loves  it  ?  Is  not  He  holy,  just  because  holiness 
is  the  native  and  kindred  element  of  His  Being?  Do  not  all  the 
worth  and  all  the  moral  excellence  of  the  Godhead,  come  direct 
from  the  original  tendencies  of  His  own  moral  nature?  And 
would  either  the  dread  of  punishment  or  the  hope  of  remuneration 
be  necessary  to  attach  Him  more  than  He  already  is,  by  the 
spontaneous  and  unbidden  propensities  of  His  own  character,  to 


christian's  daily  walk.  295 

that  virtue  which  has  been  His  glory  from  everlasting,  and  to  that 
ethereal  purity  in  which  He  most  delights  to  expatiate  ?  It  is  not 
at  the  beck  of  a  governor — it  is  not  with  a  view  to  prepare  Him- 
self for  an  appearance  at  some  bar  of  jurisprudence — it  is  nothing 
else  in  fact  but  the  preference  He  bears  for  what  is  right,  and  the 
hatred  He  holds  for  what  is  wrong — it  is  this,  and  this  alone,  which 
determines  to  absolute  and  unerring  rectitude  all  the  purposes  and 
all  the  proceedings  of  the  Deity.  And  to  be  like  unto  Him,  that 
which  is  a  task  when  done  under  the  oldness  of  the  letter,  must 
be  done  in  newness  of  spirit,  and  then  will  it  be  the  very  trans- 
port of  our  nature  to  be  engaged  in  the  doing  of  it.  What  is  now 
felt,  we  fear,  by  many  as  a  bondage,  would,  were  we  formed 
anew  in  the  image  of  him  who  created  us,  become  a  blessedness. 
The  burden  of  our  existence  would  turn  into  its  beatitude — and 
we,  exempted  from  all  those  feelings  of  drudgery  and  dislike 
which  ever  accompany  a  mere  literal  obedience,  would  prosecute 
holiness  with  a  sort  of  constitutional  delight,  and  so  evince  that 
God  was  assimilating  us  to  Himself,  that  He  was  dwelling  in  us, 
and  that  He  was  walking  in  us. 

And  the  Christian  disciple  who  is  thus  aspiring  after  that  obe- 
dience, which  while  it  fulfils  the  demands  of  the  law  in  the  letter, 
is  also  rendered  in  newness  of  spirit,  will  find  in  the  following 
Treatise,  "Scudder's  Christian's  daily  Walk  in  holy  Security 
and  Peace,"  a  valuable  companion  and  counsellor  to  guide  him 
in  every  condition  of  life,  and  under  all  the  vicissitudes  to  which 
life  is  subject — to  instruct  him  how  to  prosecute  his  daily  walk  so 
as  to  secure  his  peace,  and  to  possess  his  soul  in  patience,  in  his 
journey  through  life,  and  to  render  the  circumstances  of  his  lot, 
whether  prosperous  or  adverse,  subservient  to  the  still  higher  pur- 
pose of  promoting  his  holiness  and  his  growth  in  the  divine  life,  to 
fit  him  for  the  heavenly  rest  which  awaits  him  at  the  close  of  his 
earthly  pilgrimage.  In  this  Treatise,  the  Christian  disciple  will 
learn  to  combine  a  service  the  most  rigid  in  the  letter,  with  those 
principles  of  the  renewed  heart  which  render  it  at  the  same  time 
a  delightful  and  an  acceptable  service.  He  will  learn  how  to  walk 
with  God,  while  engaged  in  the  service  of  man.  It  is  the  produc- 
tion of  a  man  who  had  reached  to  great  attainments  in  the  spirit- 
ual life,  and  whose  wise  and  experimental  counsels  are  well  fitted 
to  guide  him  amidst  the  doubts  and  difficulties  which  may  beset  his 
path  in  the  Christian  warfare.  It  has  received  the  approving  tes- 
timony of  two  of  the  most  eminent.  Divines  of  a  former  age,  Dr. 
Owen  and  Richard  Baxter,  and  we  know  of  no  work  which  better 
merits  the  high  commendation  which  these  competent  judges  have 
bestowed  on  it. 

But  without  expatiating  on  the  excellencies  of  a  work,  the  value 
of  which  can  only  be  estimated  by  those  who  have  devoted  them- 
selves to  a  serious  perusal  of  its  pages,  we  shall  conclude  with 
two  inferences  from  the  prefatory  observations  with  which  we 


296  christian's  daily  walk. 

have  introduced  this  Treatise  to  the  notice  of  our  readers.  The 
first  is,  that  virtue,  so  far  from  being  superseded  by  the  Gospel,  is 
exalted  thereby  into  a  far  nobler,  and  purer,  and  more  disinter- 
ested attribute  of  the  character  than  before.  It  becomes  virtue, 
refined  from  that  taint  of  sordidness  which  formerly  adhered  to 
it ;  prosecuted  not  from  an  impulse  of  selfishness,  but  from  an  im- 
pulse of  generosity — followed  after  for  its  own  sake,  and  because 
of  the  loveliness  of  its  native  and  essential  charms,  instead  of 
bein"-  followed  after  for  the  sake  of  that  lucre  wherewith  it  may 
be  conceived  to  bribe  and  to  enrich  its  votaries.  Legal  virtue  is 
rendered  in  the  spirit  of  a  mercenary,  who  attaches  himself  to  the 
work  of  obedience  for  hire.  Evangelical  virtue  is  rendered  in 
the  spirit  of  an  amateur,  who,  in  attaching  himself  to  the  work  of 
obedience,  finds  that  he  is  already  in  the  midst  of  those  very  de- 
lights, than  which  he  cares  for  none  other  in  time,  and  will  care 
for  none  other  through  eternity.  The  man  who  slaves  at  the  em- 
ployment to  escape  the  penalty  or  to  secure  the  pay,  is  diametri- 
cally the  reverse  of  that  man  who  is  still  more  intensely  devoted 
to  the  employment  than  the  other,  but  because  he  has  devoted  to 
it  the  taste  and  the  affections  of  his  renovated  nature.  There  is  a 
well  of  water  struck  out  in  his  heart,  which  springeth  up  unto 
spiritual  life  here,  and  unto  everlasting  life  hereafter.  There  is  an 
angelic  spirit  which  has  descended  upon  him  from  above ;  and 
which  likens  him  to  those  beings  of  celestial  nature,  who  serve 
God,  not  from  the  authority  of  any  law  that  is  without,  but  from 
the  impulse  of  a  love  that  is  within  ;  whose  whole  heart  is  in  the 
work  of  obedience,  and  whose  happiness  is  without  alloy,  just  be- 
cause their  holiness  is  without  a  failing  and  without  a  flaw.  The 
Gospel  does  not  expunge  virtue ;  it  only  elevates  its  character, 
and  raises  the  virtue  of  earth  on  the  same  platform  with  the  vir- 
tue of  heaven.  It  causes  it  to  be  its  own  reward  ;  and  prefers 
the  disciples  of  Jesus  Christ  from  the  condition  of  hirelings  who 
serve  in  the  spirit  of  bondage  to  the  condition  of  heirs  who  serve 
their  reconciled  Father  in  the  spirit  of  adoption  ;  who  love  what 
He  loves,  and  with  a  spirit  kindred  to  His  own,  breathe  in  the 
atmosphere  which  best  suits  them,  when  they  breathe  in  the 
atmosphere  of  holiness. 

Our  second  inference  is,  that  while  the  life  of  a  Christian  is  a 
life  of  progressive  virtue,  and  of  virtue,  too,  purified  from  the 
jealousies  and  the  sordidness  of  the  legal  spirit,  still  to  be  set  on 
such  a  career,  we  see  how  indispensable  it  is  that  we  enter  by 
Christ,  as  by  the  alone  gate  of  admission  through  which  we  can 
reach  the  way  of  such  a  sanctification.  How  else  can  we  get  rid 
of  the  oldness  of  the  letter,  we  would  ask?  How  be  delivered 
from  the  fears  and  disquietudes  of  legality  ?  How  were  it  possible 
to  regard  God  in  any  other  light  than  one  whose  very  sacredness 
made  him  the  enemy  of  sinners,  and  so  made  him  hateful  to  them  ? 
We  are  bound  over  to  distrust,  and  alienation,  and  impracticable 


christian's  daily  walk.  297 

distance  from  God,  till  the  tidings  of  the  Gospel  set  us  free. 
There  is  a  leaden  and  oppressive  weight  upon  our  spirits,  under 
which  there  can  be  no  play  of  free,  or  grateful,  or  generous  emo- 
tion towards  the  Father  of  them,  till  we  hear  with  effect  of  the 
peace-speaking  blood,  and  of  the  charm  and  the  power  of  the 
great  propitiation.  Faith  in  Christ  is  not  merely  the  starting-post 
of  our  reconciliation  with  God  ;  it  is  also  the  starting-post  of  that 
new  obedience  which,  unchilled  by  jealousy,  and  untainted  by 
dread  or  by  selfishness,  is  the  alone  obedience  that  is  at  all  ac- 
ceptable. The  heart  cannot  go  freely  out  to  God,  while  beset 
with  terror,  while  combined  with  the  thoughts  of  a  yet  unsettled 
controversy,  while  in  full  view  of  its  own  sinfulness,  and  still  in 
the  dark  about  the  way  in  which  a  Being  of  unspotted  purity  and 
inflexible  justice,  can  find  out  a  right  channel  of  conveyance  for 
the  dispensation  of  His  mercy — how  he  can  be  just,  while  the 
Justifier  of  the  ungodly.  It  is  the  cross  of  Christ  that  resolves  all 
these  painful  ambiguities.  It  is  this  which  dissipates  all  these  ap- 
prehensions. It  is  this  which  maintains,  in  sanctity  unviolated, 
the  whole  aspect  and  character  of  the  Godhead  ;  while  there 
beameth  forth  from  it  the  kindest  expression  of  welcome  even  on 
the  chief  of  sinners.  Let  that  expression  be  but  seen  and  under- 
stood, and  then  will  that  be  to  us  a  matter  of  experience  which 
we  have  tried,  and  tried  so  feebly,  to  set  forth  as  a  matter  of 
demonstration.  Our  bonds  will  be  loosed.  A  thing  of  hopeless 
drudgery,  will  be  turned  into  a  thing  of  heart-felt  delight.  The 
breath  of  a  new  spirit  will  animate  our  doings  ;  and  we  will  per- 
sonally, and  by  actual  feeling,  ascertain  the  difference  that  there  is 
between  the  service  of  a  Lawgiver  pursuing  us  with  exactions  that 
we  cannot  reach,  and  the  service  of  a  Friend,  who  has  already 
charmed  us  both  into  confidence  and  gratitude,  and  is  cheering  us 
on  through  the  manifold  infirmities  of  our  nature,  to  the  resemblance 
of  himself  in  all  that  is  kind,  and  upright,  and  heavenly,  and  holy. 
It  is  only,  we  repeat  it,  through  the  knowledge  of  Christ  and  of  him 
crucified,  that  we  can  effect  this  transition  from  the  one  style  of 
obedience  to  the  other  style  of  obedience.  It  is  only  thus  that  we 
become  dead  unto  the  law,  and  alive  unto  God.  It  is  only  thus 
that  we  can  serve  him  with  all  the  energies  of  an  emancipated 
heart,  now  set  at  large  from  that  despondency  and  deadness  which 
formerly  congealed  it.  "  I  will  run  the  way  of  thy  command- 
ments," says  the  Psalmist,  "  when  thou  hast  enlarged  my  heart." 
Make  room  in  it  for  the  doctrine  of  the  cross,  and  this  will  enlarge 
it.  And,  therefore,  to  sinners  do  we  declare,  that  Christ  is  set 
forth  as  a  propitiation,  and  all  who  believe  in  him  shall  have  the 
benefit ;  and  to  believers  do  we  declare,  that  God  hath  called 
them  not  to  uncleanness,  but  to  holiness  ;  that,  naming  the  name 
of  Christ,  their  distinct  business  is  to  depart  from  all  iniquity,  and 
to  do  the  commandments,  not  because  they  can  purchase  admis- 
sion to  heaven  by  the  doing  of  them,  but  because  heaven  is  pur- 

38 


298  cheistian's  daily  walk. 

chased  for  them  already :  and  to  be  educated  for  heaven,  they 
must  learn  to  do  what  is  right — not  that  they  can  earn  a  title  upon 
God,  but  because  God  has  been  graciously  pleased  to  confer  this 
title  upon  them ;  and  now  it  is  their  part  to  do  what  is  "  well- 
pleasing  in  his  sight — walking  worthy  of  the  Lord  unto  all  pleas- 
ing— being  fruitful  in  every  good  work — and  giving  thanks  unto 
the  Father,  who  hath  made  them  meet  to  be  partakers  of  the  in- 
heritance of  the  saints  in  light." 


INTRODUCTORY  ESSAY 

TO 

TRACTS 

BY    THE    REV.    THOMAS    SCOTT, 

RECTOR  OP  ASTON  SANDFORD. 


There  is  no  delusion  more  prevalent,  or  more  difficult  to  dissi- 
pate from  the  minds  of  men,  than  the  imagined  power  which  this 
world  possesses,  to  confer  solid  good  or  substantial  enjoyment  on 
its  votaries.  Their  life  is  one  unceasing  struggle  for  some  object 
which  lies  at  a  distance  from  them.  Their  path  upon  earth  is  an 
attempted  progress  towards  some  attainment,  which  they  conceive 
to  be  placed  at  an  onward  point  in  the  line  of  their  futurity.  They 
are  fighting  their  way  to  an  arduous  eminence  of  wealth  or  of  dis- 
tinction, or  running  with  eager  desire  after  some  station  of  fancied 
delight,  or  fancied  repose,  on  this  side  of  death.  And  it  is  the 
part  of  religious  wisdom,  to  mark  the  contrast  which  obtains  be- 
tween the  activity  of  the  pursuit  in  the  ways  of  human  business, 
or  human  ambition,  and  the  utter  vanity  of  the  termination — to 
compute  the  many  chances  of  disappointment — and,  even  when 
the  success  has  been  most  triumphant,  to  compare  the  vehemence 
of  the  longing  expectation  with  the  heartlessness  of  the  dull  and 
empty  acquirement — to  observe  how,  in  the  career  of  restless  and 
aspiring  man,  he  is  ever  experiencing  that  to  be  tasteless,  on 
which,  while  beyond  his  reach,  he  had  lavished  his  fondest  and 
most  devoted  energies.  When  we  thus  see  that  the  life  of  man 
in  the  world  is  spent  in  vanity,  and  goes  out"  in  darkness,  we  may 
say  of  all  the  wayward  children  of  humanity,  that  they  run  as 
uncertainly,  and  fight  as  one  who  beateth  the  air;  or,  to  quote 
another  Bible  declaration,  "Surely  man  walketh  in  a  vain  show, 
surely  he  vexeth  himself  in  vain." 

But  these  animadversions  on  that  waste  of  strength  and  of  ex- 
ertion, which  is  incurred  by  the  mere  votaries  of  this  world,  are 
not  applicable  merely  to  the  pursuits  of  general  humanity,  they 
are  frequently  no  less  applicable  to  our  pursuits  as  Christians  ;  and 


300 


SCOTT  S    TRACTS. 


even  with  eternity  as  an  object,  there  is  a  way  of  so  running,  and 
of  so  contending  for  it,  as  to  make  no  advances  towards  it.  A 
man  may  be  walking  actively  with  this  view,  and  yet  not  be 
walking  surely.  A  man  may  have  entered  into  a  strenuous  com- 
bat for  the  rewards  of  immortality,  and  yet  not  obtain  either  the 
triumphs  or  the  fruits  of  victory.  There  may  be  a  great  expense 
of  movement,  and  of  effort,  and  of  diligence,  and  all  for  the  good 
of  his  soul ;  and  yet  the  expense  be  utterly  unproductive  of  that  for 
which  his  soul  is  anxiously  putting  forth  the  energies  which  belong 
to  it.  He  may  be  walking  on  a  way  of  toilsome  exertion,  and  yet 
not  be  going  on  in  his  way  rejoicing.  A  haunting  sense  of  the  van- 
ity of  all  his  labor,  may  darken  and  paralyze  every  footstep  of  his 
attempted  progress  towards  heaven,  and  make  him  utterly  the 
reverse  of  that  Christian  who  is  steadfast,  and  immovable,  and 
always  abounding.  The  man  can  never  be  satisfied  with  his  own 
movements,  who  is  not  making  sensible  progress  towards  some 
assigned  object  of  desire ;  and  should  that  be  a  blissful  eternity, 
there  will  adhere  to  him  all  the  discomfort  of  running  uncertainly, 
so  long  as  he  is  not  getting  perceptibly  nearer  to  the  fulfilment  of 
his  wishes.  It  were  lifting  off  the  weight  of  a  mountain  from  the 
heart  of  many  a  laboring  inquirer,  could  he  be  set  on  a  sure  place, 
and  a  clear  and  ever  brightening  object  be  placed  before  him  in 
the  march  of  his  practical  Christianity — could  such  a  distinct  aim 
and  bearing  be  assigned  to  him,  as,  with  a  full  knowledge  of  the 
purpose  of  all  his  doings,  and  a  hope  of  the  purpose  being  accom- 
plished, he  might,  in  whatever  he  did,  do  it  with  cheerfulness  and 
vigor — could  he  be  made  to  understand  whither  his  labors  are 
tending,  and  for  this  end  something  precise,  and  definite,  and  in- 
telligible, were  at  length  to  evolve  itself  out  of  the  mists  and  the 
mazes  of  human  controversy — could  all  the  wranglings  of  dispu- 
tation be  hushed,  and,  amid  the  din  of  conflicting  opinions  about 
faith,  and  works,  and  the  agency  of  man,  and  the  sovereignty  of 
God,  an  authoritative  voice  were  heard  to  lift  the  overbearing 
utterance  of  "  This  is  the  way,  walk  ye  in  it" — could  he  be  res- 
cued from  the  indecisions  of  those  who  are  ever  learning,  and 
never  able  to  arrive  at  the  knowledge  of  the  truth, — then,  like 
Paul,  might  he  both  be  strong  in  orthodoxy,  and  strong  in  the 
confidence  and  consistency  of  his  practical  determinations.  He 
would  not  be,  what  we  fear  many  professing  Christians  are,  at  a 
loss  how  to  turn  themselves,  and  in  the  dire  perplexity  of  those 
who  labor  without  an  object  and  without  an  end. 

There  are  three  different  states  of  activity  in  the  prosecution  of 
our  religious  interests,  to  which  we  shall  advert,  all  of  which  are 
exemplified  in  human  experience  ;  and  we  shall  attempt  to  point 
out  what  is  right  and  what  is  wrong  in  each  of  them. 

The  first  state  of  activity  is  exemplified  by  those  who  seek  to 
establish  a  righteousness  of  their  own  ;  the  second  by  those  who 
seek  to  be  justified   by  faith  ;   and  the  third  by  those  who  seek 


scott's  tracts.  301 

under  Christ,  as  the  accepted  Mediator,  to  attain  that  holiness 
without  which  no  man  can  see  God — to  reach  that  character, 
without  which  there  is  no  congeniality  with  the  joys  or  the  exer- 
cises of  heaven. 

I.  In  the  New  Testament,  the  Jews  are  charged  with  a  pre- 
vailing disposition  to  establish  a  righteousness  of  their  own,  but 
this  formed  no  local  or  national  peculiarity  on  the  part  of  the 
Jewish  people.  It  is  the  universal  disposition  of  nature,  and  is  as 
plainly  and  prominently  exemplified  among  professing  Christians 
of  the  day,  as  it  ever  was  by  the  most  zealous  adherents  of  the 
Mosaic  ritual.  It  is  true,  that  out  of  the  multitude  of  its  ceremo- 
nial observations,  a  goodly  frame- work  could  be  reared  of  outward 
and  apparent  conformities  to  the  will  of  God;  and  nothing  more 
natural  than  for  man  to  enter  into  that  which  is  the  work  of  his 
own  hands,  and  then  to  feel  himself  as  if  placed  in  a  tabernacle 
of  security.  But  there  are  other  materials  besides  those  of  Juda- 
ism, which  men  can  employ  for  raising  a  fabric  of  self-righteous- 
ness. Some  of  them  as  formal  in  their  character  as  the  Sabbaths 
and  the  Sacraments  of  Christianity — others  of  them  with  the  claim 
of  being  more  substantial  in  their  character,  as  the  relative  duties 
and  proprieties  of  life, — but  all  of  them  proceeding  on  the  same 
presumption,  that  man  can,  by  his  own  powers,  work  out  a  meri- 
torious title  to  acceptance  with  God,  and  that  he  can  so  equalize 
his  doings  with  the  demands  of  the  law,  as  to  make  it  incumbent 
on  the  Lawgiver  to  confer  on  him  the  rewards  and  the  favor 
which  are  due  to  obedience. 

Now  it  is  worthy  of  remark,  that  though  few  are  prepared  to 
assert  this  principle  in  all  its  extent,  and  though  it  even  be  dis- 
owned by  them  in  profession,  yet  in  practice  and  in  feeling  it 
adheres  to  them.  To  the  question.  What  shall  I  do  to  be  saved  ? 
it  is  the  silent  answer  of  many  a  heart,  That  there  is  something 
which  I  can  do,  and  by  the  doing  of  which  I  can  achieve  my  sal- 
vation. A  sense  of  his  own  sufficiency  lurks  in  the  bosom  of  man, 
long  after,  by  his  lips,  he  has  denied  it ;  and  it  is  a  very  possible 
thinsr  to  be  most  steadfast  in  the  arguments,  and  most  strenuous  in 
the  asseverations  of  orthodoxy,  and  yet  practically  to  be  so  undis- 
ciplined by  its  lessons,  as  that  the  habit  of  the  whole  man  shall  be 
in  a  state  of  real  and  effective  resistance  to  them. 

And  thus  it  is,  that,  among  the  men  of  all  creeds,  and  of  all  pro- 
fessions in  Christianity,  do  we  meet  with  the  attempt  of  estab- 
lishing a  righteousness  of  their  own.  The  question  of  our  interest 
with  God  is  no  sooner  entertained  by  the  human  mind,  than  it  ap- 
pears to  be  one  of  the  readiest  and  most  natural  of  its  movements 
to  do  something  for  the  object  of  working  out  such  a  righteous- 
ness. The  question  of,  How  shall  I,  from  being  personally  a 
condemned  sinner,  become  personally  an  approved  and  accepted 
servant  of  God?  no  sooner  enters  the  mind,  than  it  is  followed  up 
by  the  suggestion  of  such  a  personal  change  in  habit  or  in  char- 


302  scott's  tracts. 

acter,  as  it  is  competent  for  man,  by  his  own  turning  and  his  own 
striving,  to  accomplish.  The  power  of  which  I  am  conscious — 
the  command  with  which  I  feel  myself  invested  over  both  my 
thoughts  and  my  doings — the  authoritative  voice  which  the  mind 
can  issue  from  the  place  of  fancied  sovereignty  where  it  sits,  and 
from  which  it  exacts  both  of  the  outer  and  the  inner  man  an  obe- 
dience to  all  its  inclinations, — these  are  what  I  constantly  and  fa- 
miliarly press  into  my  service ;  and  I  find  that,  in  point  of  fact, 
they  are  able  to  conduct  me  to  many  a  practical  attainment.  Nor 
is  it  to  be  wondered  at,  that  when  the  attainment  in  question  is 
such  a  righteousness  before  God  as  may  empower  me  to  lift  a  plea 
of  desert  in  his  hearing,  the  presumption  should  still  adhere  to  me, 
that  this  also  I  can  achieve  by  my  own  strength — this  also  I  shall 
win,  as  the  fruit  of  my  own  energies,  and  my  own  aspirations. 

Now,  what  stamps  an  utter  hopelessness  upon  such  an  enter- 
prise as  this,  is  both  the  actual  deficiency  of  every  man's  conduct 
from  the  requirements  of  God's  law,  throughout  that  part  of  his 
history  which  is  past,  and  the  deficiency,  no  less  obvious,  of  every 
man's  powers  from  a  full  and  equal  obedience  to  the  same  re- 
quirements, during  that  part  of  his  history  which  is  to  come. 
Without  entering  into  the  abstract  question  of  justice,  whether  the 
rigor  of  a  man's  future  conformities  should  make  up  for  the  offence 
of  his  bygone  disobedience,  and  deciding  this  question  by  the  light 
of  nature  or  of  conscience,  certain  it  is,  that  no  man,  under  the 
revelation  of  the  Gospel,  can  feel  himself,  even  though  he  were  on 
a  most  prosperous  career  of  advancing  virtue,  to  be  in  a  state 
of  ease  in  the  sense  of  the  guilt  that  has  already  been  incurred, 
and  of  the  transgressions  which  have  already  been  committed  by 
him.  On  this  subject,  there  are  certain  texts  of  the  Bible  which 
look  hard  upon  him — certain  solemn  announcements  about  the  im- 
mutability of  the  law,  which  cannot  fail  to  disturb,  and,  it  may  be, 
to  paralyze  him — certain  damnatory  clauses  about  the  very  least 
act  of  iniquity,  on  which  he,  conscious  of  great  and  repeated  acts 
of  iniquity,  may  well  conclude  himself  to  be  a  lost  and  irrecover- 
able sinner — certain  mighty  asseverations,  on  the  part  of  God's 
own  Son,  about  the  difficulty  of  annulling  the  sanctions  of  his  Fa- 
ther's government,  and  that  it  were  easier  for  heaven  and  earth  to 
pass  away  than  for  these  to  pass  away,  which  may  well  fill  the 
heart  of  every  conscious  offender  with  the  assurance,  that  his  con- 
demnation is  as  unfailing  as  the  truth  of  God,  and  greatly  more 
unfailing  than  are  the  present  ordinances  of  creation.  These  both 
tell  the  enlightened  sinnerthat  his  case  is  beyond  the  remedy  even 
of  his  most  powerful  exertions ;  and  they  also  make  exertions 
which,  in  the  spirit  of  hope  and  of  confidence,  might  have  been 
powerful,  weak  as  childhood,  by  the  overwhelming  influence  of 
despair.  The  man  feels  that  the  sentence  which  is  already  past, 
lays  the  weight  of  an  immovable  interdict  upon  all  his  energies. 
His  interest  with  God  looks  to  be  irrecoverable,  and  any  attempt 


scott's  tracts.  303 

to  recover  it  is  like  the  frantic  exertions  of  a  captive  raving  in 
despair  around  the  impracticable  walls  of  the  dungeon  which  holds 
him.  While  the  handwriting  of  ordinances  is  still  against  him.  and 
not  taken  out  of  the  way,  it  looks  to  him  like  the  flaming  sword  at 
the  gate  of  Paradise,  forbidding  his  every  attempt  to  force  the  bar- 
rier of  that  blissful  habitation.  The  man  is  in  a  state  of  spiritual 
imprisonment,  and  he  feels  himself  to  be  so.  The  menacing  ur- 
gencies of  the  law  may  put  him  into  a  kind  of  convulsive  activity, 
while  the  unrelenting  severity  of  the  law  leaves  him  not  one  parti- 
cle of  hope  to  gladden  or  to  inspire  it.  Thus  he  runs  without  an 
object,  and  struggles  without  even  the  anticipation  of  success. 

The  thing  which  makes  the  remembrance  of  the  past  shed  a 
blight  so  withering  and  so  destructive  over  the  attempted  obedi- 
ence of  the  future,  is,  that  we  cannot  admit  the  truth  of  the  mat- 
ter into  our  understanding,  without  admitting,  at  the  same  time, 
into  our  hearts,  an  apprehension  which  instantly  stifles,  or  puts  to 
flight  the  alone  principle  of  all  acceptable  obedience.  The  truth 
of  the  matter  is,  that  the  promulgations  of  the  law  cannot  be  sur- 
rendered, without  a  surrender  of  the  attributes  of  God,  and  thus  it 
is,  that  with  every  man  who  thinks  truly,  the  consciousness  of  being 
a  sinner,  brings  along  with  it  the  fear  of  God  as  an  avenger.  And 
it  is  impossible  for  sentient  nature  to  love  the  Being  whom  it  so 
fears.  It  is  impossible,  at  one  and  the  same  time,  to  have  a  dread 
of  God,  and  a  delight  in  God.  There  may  be  love  up  to  the  height 
of  seraphic  ecstasy,  where  there  is  the  fear  of  reverence,  but  there 
is  no  love  in  any  one  of  its  modifications,  where  there  is  the  fear 
of  terror.  Let  God  appear  before  the  eye  of  our  imagination,  in 
the  light  of  a  strong  man,  armed  to  destroy  us,  and  if  the  only 
obedience  which  our  heart  can  render  be  love,  then  is  our  heart 
put,  by  such  an  exhibition  of  the  Deity,  into  a  state  of  rebellion. 
There  may  be  physical,  but  there  is  no  moral  obedience.  The 
feet  may  be  made  to  run,  and  the  hands  to  move,  and  the  tongue 
to  speak,  or  to  be  silent,  and  the  whole  organization  of  the  body 
may  be  squared  into  a  rigorous  adjustment,  with  a  set  of  outward 
and  literal  conformities,  and  yet  the  soul  which  animates  that  or- 
ganization, be  all  in  a  fester  with  its  known  delinquencies  against 
the  law,  and  its  dark  suspicious  antipathies  against  the  Lawgiver. 
And  thus  it  is.  that  let  the  present  moment  be  the  point  of  our 
purposed  reformation,  not  only  may  God  charge  us  with  the  unex- 
piated  guilt  of  all  that  goes  before  it,  but,  if  we  have  a  just  and 
enlightened  retrospect  of  what  we  were,  and  an  equally  just  and 
enlightened  conception  of  Him  with  whom  we  have  to  do,  there 
will  be  a  taint  of  substantial  worthlessness  in  all  that  comes  after  it. 
That  which  stands  so  strong  a  bar  in  the  way  of  reconciliation, 
will  just  stand  equally  strong  as  a  bar  in  the  way  of  repentance. 
The  sense  of  God's  hostility  to  us,  will  so  provoke  our  fear  and 
our  hostility  towards  Him,  as  to  haunt,  and  utterly  to  vitiate  the 
whole  character  of  our  proposed  and  attempted  obedience.   When 


304  scott's  tracts. 

the  body,  worn  out  by  the  drudgery  of  its  painful  and  reluctant 
observations,  shall  resign  its  ascending  spirit  to  Him  who  sitteth 
on  the  throne,  he  will  not  recognize  upon  it  one  lineament  of  that 
generous  and  confiding  affection,  which  gives  all  its  worth  to  the 
love  and  the  loyalty  of  paradise.  He  will  not  discern  one  mark 
of  preparation  for  an  inheritance  in  heaven,  upon  him  who  on 
earth  made  many  a  weary  struggle  to  attain  it. 

There  are,  it  must  be  admitted,  many  who  do  not  think  truly 
of  the  law ;  and  who,  not  aware  of  its  lofty  demands,  think  they 
do  enough,  when  they  maintain  a  complacent  round  of  seemly, 
but  at  the  same  time  most  inadequate  observations — among  whom 
all  is  formality  without,  and  all  is  repose  and  settledness  within — 
who  pace,  with  unwearied  step,  the  circle  of  ordinances,  and  are 
just  as  regular  in  their  attendance,  as  is  the  bell  which  summons 
them  to  the  house  of  prayer — who  would  feel  discomfort  out  of 
their  routine,  but  have  the  most  placid  and  immovable  security 
within  it — and  who,  amid  the  engrossment  of  their  many  punctu- 
alities, have  never  thought  of  admitting  into  their  bosoms  one  fear, 
or  one  feeling,  that  can  at  all  disturb  them.  These  are  running 
uncertainly ;  but  they  are  not  harassed  by  any  sense  or  suspicion 
of  it.  They  are  only  beating  the  air  ;  but  they  are  not  fatigued 
by  the  consciousness  of  its  being  a  fruitless  operation.  They  are 
in  a  state  of  repose  ;  but  it  is  the  repose  of  death.  They  have 
accommodated  their  conduct  to  the  established  decencies  of  the 
world  ;  but  the  spirit  of  the  world  has  never  quitted  its  hold  of 
them.  Their  portion  is  on  this  side  of  the  grave — their  delights 
are  on  this  side  of  the  grave — their  all  is  on  this  side  of  the  grave. 
They  go  to  church,  and  they  sit  down  to  the  sacrament,  and  they 
maintain  within  their  houses  a  style  of  Sabbath  observation  ;  but 
these  are  merely  habits  appended  to  the  mechanical,  and  not  to 
the  moral  or  spiritual  part  of  their  constitution.  They  may  do  all 
this,  and  be  strangers  to  the  life  of  faith,  to  the  exercise  of  devout 
affection,  to  the  habit  of  communion  with  God,  as  the  living  God; 
to  all  those  processes,  in  short,  which  mark  and  carryforward  the 
transformation  of  the  soul,  from  its  congeniality  with  the  elements 
of  nature  and  of  sense,  to  its  congeniality  with  the  elements  of 
spirit  and  of  eternity.  There  may  be  a  work  of  drudgery  with 
the  hands,  and  with  the  doing  of  which,  too,  they  are  pleased  and 
satisfied,  while  there  is  no  work  of  grace  upon  the  heart.  The 
outer  man  may  be  in  a  state  of  incessant  bodily  exercise.  The 
inner  man  may  be  in  a  state  of  entire  stagnancy.  They  do,  in 
fact,  run  uncertainly.  They  do,  in  fact,  fight  as  he  who  beateth 
the  air.  But  they  have  no  fear  of  coming  short — no  feeling  to 
iinliitter  the  course  of  their  religious  activity;  and  without  the 
wakefulness  of  any  alarm  upon  the  subject,  do  they  so  contend  as 
to  lose  the  mastery,  do  they  so  run  as  that  they  shall  not  obtain. 

Now  this  is  not  the  class  that  we  have  chiefly  had  in  our  eye. 
The  men  to  whom  we  principally  allude,  are  those  who  run,  but 


SCOTT  S    TRACTS.  305 

without  hope,  and  without  satisfaction — men  who  fight,  but  with- 
out any  cheering  anticipations  of  victory.  They  are  seeking  a 
righteousness  by  works  ;  and  are,  at  the  same  time,  disheartened 
at  every  step,  by  the  consciousness  of  no  sensible  advancement 
towards  it.  Unlike  the  latter,  they  think  more  truly  and  more  ade- 
quately of  the  law.  The  one  class  see  it  only  in  the  light  of  a 
carnal  commandment.  The  others  see  it  according  to  the  char- 
acter of  its  spiritual  requirements.  The  one,  without  an  enlight- 
ened sense  of  the  law,  are  what  the  apostle  represents  himself  to 
have  been  when  without  the  law,  alive  ;  even  like  all  those  relig- 
ious formalists,  who  look  forward  to  eternal  life  on  the  strength  of 
their  manifold  and  religious  observations.  The  others,  with  this 
enlightened  sense,  are  what  the  apostle  represents  himself  to  have 
been  after  the  law  came,  dead  ;  or  they  feel  all  the  helplessness 
of  death  and  of  despair,  even  as  he  did,  when,  amid  his  strenuous 
but  unavailing  struggles,  he  was  forced  to  exclaim,  "O  wretched 
man  that  I  am,  who  shall  deliver  me?"  And  thus  it  is,  we  believe, 
with  many  whose  hearts  have  at  length  been  struck  by  a  sense  of 
the  importance  of  eternal  things — who  have  begun  to  feel  the 
weight  of  their  everlasting  interests — who  are  sensible  that  all  is 
not  right  about  them,  and  are  seeking  about  for  that  movement  of 
transition,  by  which  they  may  be  carried  forward  from  a  state  of 
wrath  to  a  state  of  acceptance — who,  in  obedience  to  the  first 
natural  impulse,  strive  to  amend  what  is  wrong  in  conduct,  and  to 
adopt  what  is  right  in  conduct,  but  find,  that  after  all  their  toil, 
and  all  their  carefulness,  that  relief  is  as  far  from  them  as  ever — 
who  set  up  a  new  order  in  their  lives,  and  propose  to  find  their 
way  to  peace  on  the  stepping-stones  of  many  and  successive  ref- 
ormations, but  find,  that  as  they  pile  their  offerings  of  obedience 
the  one  upon  the  other,  the  law  rises  in  its  exactions  ;  and  what 
with  a  claim  of  satisfaction  for  the  past,  and  of  spiritual  obedience 
for  the  future,  it  exhibits  itself  to  their  appalled  imaginations,  in 
the  dimensions  of  such  a  length,  and  a  breadth,  and  a  height,  and 
a  depth,  as  they  never  can  encircle — who,  in  the  very  proportion, 
it  may  be,  of  their  pains  and  their  earnestness,  are  ever  acquiring 
more  tremendous  conceptions,  both  of  the-  extent  of  its  requisi- 
tions, and  the  terrors  of  its  authority — who  thus  feel,  that  by 
every  trial  of  obedience,  they  are  just  multiplying  their  failures, 
and  swelling  the  account  of  guilt  and  of  deficiency  that  is  against 
them — who  feel  themselves  in  the  hopeless  condition  of  men, 
whose  every  attempt  at  extrication,  just  thickens  the  entangle- 
ments that  are  around  them,  and  whose  every  effort  of  activity 
fastens  them  the  deeper  in  an  abyss  of  helplessness.  This  is  the 
real  process,  we  will  not  say  of  all.  but  of  many  a  convert  to  the 
light  and  power  of  the  Gospel.  This  is  the  sure  result  with  every 
man  who  seeks  to  establish  a  righteousness  of  his  own,  if,  along 
with  this  attempt,  he  combines  an  adequate  conception  of  the  law 
in  the  spirituality  of  its  demand's,  of  the  law  in  the  certaintv  of  its 

39 


306  bcott's  tracts. 

exactions.  He  feels  urged,  on  the  one  hand,  by  its  menacing  and 
authoritative  voice,  to  do.  He  feels  convicted,  on  the  other,  by  a 
sense  of  the  guilt  or  inadequacy  which  attaches  to  all  his  doing. 
He  feels  himself  in  the  hand  of  a  master  issuing  an  impracticable 
mandate,  and  lifting  at  the  same  time  an  arm  of  powerful  displea- 
sure, for  all  his  past  and  all  his  present  violations.  He  cannot  sit 
still  under  the  power  and  frequency  of  the  applications  which  are 
now  making  to  his  awakened  conscience.  He  flies  for  deliverance, 
but  it  is  like  the  flight  of  a  desperado  from  his  sure  and  unrelent- 
ing pursuers. 

In  the  olden  books  of  Scotland,  and  in  that  traditional  history, 
which  is  handed  down  from  the  pious  of  one  generation  to  another, 
we  meet  with  this  very  process  not  unaptly  described  under  the 
term  of  law-work.  It  is  well  delineated  in  the  lives  of  Brainerd 
and  Halyburton.  There  is  an  intermediate  period  of  darkness, 
and  despondency,  and  distress,  in  many  an  individual  history,  be- 
tween the  repose  of  nature's  indifference,  and  the  repose  of  Gospel 
peace  and  Gospel  anticipations.  The  mind,  in  these  circumstan- 
ces, is  generally  alive  to  two  distinct  things  :  first,  to  the  truth  and 
immutable  obligation  of  God's  law;  and,  secondly,  to  the  magni- 
tude and  irrecoverable  evil  of  its  own  actual  deficiencies.  It  is  at 
one  time  urged  on  by  an  impulse  of  natural  conscience,  to  a  set  of 
active  measures  for  the  recovery  of  its  lost  condition.  It  is  at 
another  time  mortified  into  a  despairing  sense,  that  all  these  meas- 
ures are  utterly  fruitless  and  unavailing.  And  thus  amid  the  agi- 
tations of  doubt,  and  terror,  and  remorse  ;  and  sinking  under  the 
weight  of  an  oppressive  gloom,  which  is  ever  deepening,  and  ever 
aggravating  around  it,  is  it  at  length  practically  and  experimen- 
tally convinced,  by  many  a  weary  but  unsuccessful  struggle,  that 
in  itself  there  is  no  strength;  that  the  man  who  runs  upon  his  own 
energies,,  runs  uncertainly  ;  and  that  he  who  fights  with  his  own 
weapons,  fights  as  one  that  beateth  the  air. 

II.  Having  tried  to  seek  a  righteousness  by  works,  and  having 
failed,  the  next  trial  of  many  an  inquirer  after  peace,  is,  to  seek  a 
righteousness  by  faith.  And  here  we  cannot  but  advert  to  the 
prejudice  of  the  general  world  against  the  doctrine  of  acceptance 
through  faith,  as  if  it  were  a  doctrine  most  loved,  and  most  re- 
sorted to,  by  those  who  felt  no  value  for  the  worth  of  moral  ac- 
complishments, and  bestowed  no  labor  on  the  cultivation  of  them. 
We  beg  the  attention  of  our  readers  to  the  contrast  which  obtains 
between  a  very  prevailing  fancy  upon  this  subject,  and  the  fact,  as 
it  stands  experimentally  before  us.  The  fancy  is,  that  those  who 
disclaim  a  justification  by  works,  are  those  who  take  the  least 
pains  in  the  doing  of  them.  The  fact  is,  that  it  was  by  their  very 
pains  to  be  perfect  and  complete  in  the  doing  of  them,  that  they 
found  this  foundation  to  be  impracticable  ;  and,  now  that  they  are 
upon  another  foundation,  it  is'u  n,  and  not  unto  others,  that 

we  look  for  works  in  their  greatest  abundance,  for  works  in  their 


scott's  tracts.  307 

greatest  purity.  The  fancy  is,  that,  by  linking  their  whole  secu- 
rity, not  with  the  rewards  of  obedience,  but  with  the  grace  of  the 
Gospel,  these  people  have  given  up  all  business  with  the  law. 
The  fact  is,  that,  ever  since  they  thought  of  religion  at  all,  they 
have  been  by  far  the  busiest  of  all  their  fellows  about  the  requisi- 
tions of  the  law.  It  was  their  schoolmaster,  to  bring  them  unto 
Christ ;  and  now  that  they  are  so  brought,  the  keeping  of  the  law 
forms  their  daily  and  delightful  occupation.  It  may  well  rank  as 
one  of  the  curiosities  of  our  nature,  that  they  who  are  most  hos- 
tile to  the  doctrine  of  the  efficacy  of  faith,  because  they  think  that 
works  of  themselves  are  sufficient  for  salvation,  are,  in  the  real 
and  practical  habit  of  their  lives,  most  negligent  in  the  perform- 
ance of  them  ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  that  they  who  are  most 
hostile  to  the  doctrine  of  the  efficacy  of  works,  because  they 
think  that  it  is  by  the  power  of  faith  that  we  are  kept  unto  salva- 
tion, are  the  men  who  have  most  to  show  of  those  very  works  on 
which  they  seem  to  stamp  so  slight  an  estimation.  And,  to  com- 
plete this  apparent  mystery,  they  who  impute  nothing  but  licen- 
tiousness to  orthodoxy,  tolerate  licentiousness  only  in  those  who 
are  the  enemies,  and  never  in  those  who  are  the  professors  of  it — 
look  upon  the  alliance  between  vice  and  evangelical  sentiment  to 
be  a  far  more  monstrous  and  unlikely  alliance  than  that  which 
often  obtains  between  vice  and  an  irreligious  contempt  for  all  the 
peculiarities  of  our  faith — reproach  the  doctrine  of  the  Gospel  for 
its  immoral  tendencies,  and  yet,  for  every  flaw  in  the  morality  of 
its  disciples,  will  they  lift  the  reproachful  cry  of  their  lives  and 
their  opinions  being  in  a  state  of  disgraceful  and  hypocritical  va- 
riance with  each  other  :  proving,  after  all,  that  the  men  who  build 
their  security  most  upon  faith,  are  the  men  to  whom  even  the 
world  looks  for  most  in  the  way  of  practical  righteousness  ;  are 
the  men  whose  delinquencies  are  ever  sure  to  raise  the  loudest 
murmurs  of  wrath  or  of  astonishment  from  by-standers  ;  are  the 
men  over  whom  satire  feels  herself  to  have  the  greatest  advan- 
tage, when  by  any  peccadillo  of  conduct,  they  furnish  her  with  a 
topic,  either  of  merriment  or  severity.  And  what  else  can  we 
make  of  all  these  inconsistencies,  than  that  there  is  a  deep  and 
prevailing  misconception  about  the  real  character  of  the  evangel- 
ical system  ?  and  that,  while  there  has  been  imputed  to  it  a  cold 
and  repulsive  aspect  towards  virtue,  their  lies  veiled  under  this  a 
powerful  and  a  working  principle,  from  which  even  the  public  at 
large  expect  a  more  abundant  return  than  they  do  from  any  other 
quarter  of  human  society,  of  all  the  graces  and  all  the  accom- 
plishments of  virtue  1 

There  is  a  change  in  the  direction  of  our  mind,  when,  from  the 
object  of  being  justified  by  works,  it  turns  itself  to  the  new  object 
of  being  justified  by  faith.  It  is  then  only  that  it  puts  itself  in 
quest  of  the  only  justification  which  is  possible ;  and  yet,  when 
thus  employed,  there  is  still  a  way  of  running  uncertainly.     For, 


308  scott's  tracts. 

first,  as  virtue  is  a  thing  which  attaches  personally  to  him  who 
performs  it,  so  is  faith  a  thing  which  attaches  personally  to  him 
who  possesses  it.  The  one  has  just  as  local  a  residence  within 
the  mind,  as  the  other.  To  have  kind  affection,  and  to  have  it  not, 
argues  a  difference  in  the  state  of  one's  heart ;  and  to  have  faith,  or 
to  have  it  not,  argues  just  as  effectually  a  difference  in  the  state  of 
one's  understanding.  To  believe  is  to  do  that  which  we  ought.  To 
disbelieve,  is  to  do  that  which  we  ought  not.  And  further,  we  are 
expressly  told  in  the  Gospel,  that,  with  the  right  thing  about  us,  there 
is  linked  our  inheritance  in  heaven  ;  and  with  the  wrong  thing  about 
us,  there  is  linked  our  everlasting  consignment  to  hell.  Here  then 
is  faith,  like  virtue,  a  personal  acquirement;  the  possession  of  which 
is  a  right  thing,  and  the  want  of  which  is  a  wrong  thing.  With 
such  a  statement  before  us,  there  is  nothing  more  natural,  than  that 
we  should  look  upon  faith  as  standing  in  the  same  place,  under  the 
dispensation  of  the  Gospel,  that  obedience  did,  under  the  dispensa- 
tion of  the  Law  ;  that  we  should  set  about  the  acquirement  of  the 
one  very  much  in  the  way  in  which  we  set  about  the  acquirement 
of  the  other  ;  that  we  should  put  ourselves  to  work  with  the  terms 
of  the  new  covenant,  just  as  we  had  been  in  the  habit  of  working 
with  the  terms  of  the  old  covenant ;  strive  to  render  our  half  of 
the  bargain,  which  is  faith,  and  then  look  to  God  for  His  half  of 
the  bargain,  which  is  our  final  and  everlasting  salvation. 

Under  the  economy  of  "  Do  this  and  live,"  the  great  point  of 
anxiety  with  him  who  is  laboring  for  the  good  of  his  soul,  is,  "O 
that  I  had  obedience  !"  Under  the  economy  of  "  Believe,  and  ye 
shall  be  saved,"  the  great  point  of  anxiety  with  him  who  is  labor- 
ing for  the  good  of  his  soul,  is,  "  O  that  I  had  faith  !"  There  is, 
in  both  cases,  an  earnestness,  and  perhaps  a  striving  after  the  ac- 
quirement of  a  certain  property  of  character.  The  only  differ- 
ence between  the  two  cases,  lies  in  the  kind  of  property.  But, 
just  as  the  mind  may  put  forth  a  strenuousness  in  its  attempt  to 
realize  the  grace  of  temperance,  or  in  its  attempt  to  realize  the 
grace  of  patience ;  so  may  the  mind  put  forth  a  strenuousness  in 
its  attempt  to  realize  the  grace  of  faith ;  and,  with  the  success  of 
this  endeavor,  may  it  connect  the  prize  of  a  happy  eternity,  and 
be  virtually  in  the  same  attitude  of  laboring  to  substantiate  a  claim 
under  the  Gospel,  as  it  formerly  was  under  the  law.  So  that,  in 
fact,  the  old  legal  spirit  may  be  as  fully  at  work  with  the  new  re- 
quirements, as  ever  it  was  with  the  old  ones.  The  prospect  of 
bliss  may  still  be  made  to  turn  as  much  as  before  upon  a  perform- 
ance. The  only  change  is  in  the  terms  of  the  performance.  But, 
in  point  of  fact,  men  may  make  a  work  of  faith.  They  may  offer 
it  to  heaven,  as  their  part  of  a  new  contract  into  which  God  has 
entered  with  the  guilty.  Faith  and  reward  may  stand  related  to 
each  other,  as  the  corresponding  terms  of  a  stipulation,  in  the 
same  way  that  obedience  and  reward  did.  The  favor  of  God, 
instead  of  being  seen   as   a   gift  held   out   for  our  acceptance, 


SCOTT  S    TRACTS.  309 

may  still  be  seen  as  a  thing  to  be  gained  by  a  mental  work,  done 
with  the  putting  forth  of  mental  energies.  In  the  doing  of  this  work, 
there  may  be  felt  all  the  darkness,  and  all  the  anxiety,  and  all  the 
spirit  of  bondage,  which  attached  to  the  work  of  the  old  covenant. 
And  thus  it  is  that  there  are  many,  with  the  doctrine  of  the  Gospel 
in  their  minds,  and  the  phraseology  of  the  Gospel  on  their  lips,  upon 
whom  the  grace  of  the  Gospel  is  utterly  thrown  away,  and  who,  as 
if  still  goaded  on  by  the  threats  and  exactions  of  the  law,  continue 
to  run  as  uncertainly,  and  to  fight  even  as  one  who  beateth  the  air. 
Now,  it  is  evident,  that  in  this  way  the  Gospel  may  be  so  mis- 
conceived, as  to  have  no  right  or  appropriate  influence  whatever 
on  the  mind  of  an  inquirer.  If  salvation,  instead  of  being  looked 
to,  as  by  grace  through  faith,  be  looked  to,  as  by  faith,  in  the  light 
of  a  rendered  condition  on  the  part  of  man,  upon  wThich  he  may 
challenge  a  certain  stipulated  fulfilment  on  the  part  of  God, — then, 
all  the  distance,  and  suspicion,  and  unsatisfied  longings,  by  which 
he  felt  himself  to  be  harassed  and  enfeebled,  when  attempting  to 
work  and  to  win  under  the  old  economy,  may  still  attend  him,  as 
he  tries  to  work  and  to  win,  under  the  new.  With  his  mind 
thus  unfortunately  set,  he  may  still  regard  God  in  the  light  of 
a  jealous  exactor,  and  himself  in  the  light  of  a  lacking  tribu- 
tary. He  may  still  be  looking  to  the  condition  of  his  faith, 
and  trembling  at  the  defects  of  it ;  just  as,  before  he  attended  to 
the  Gospel,'  he  looked  to  the  condition  of  his  obedience,  and  trem- 
bled at  the  defects  of  it.  It  may  still,  in  his  eye,  retain  the  whole  UX^ • 
spirit  and  character  of  a  negotiation  between  two  parties  ;  and  all 
the  uncertainty  of  whether  with  him,  as  one  of  these  parties,  there 
has  been  a  failure  or  a  fulfilment,  may  still  adhere,  to  agitate  and 
to  disturb  him.  At  this  rate,  the  Gospel  ceases,  in  fact,  to  be  Gos- 
pel. It  loses  its  character  in  his  eye,  as  a  dispensation  of  mercy. 
The  exhibition  it  offers,  is  not  that  of  God  holding  out  a  benefit, 
in  the  shape  of  a  gift,  for  our  acceptance ;  but  of  God  holding  out. 
a  benefit,  in  the  shape  of  a  return  for  our  faith.  So  that,  ere  we 
can  look  with  a  sentiment  of  hopeful  confidence  towards  him,  we 
must  first  look  with  a  feeling  of  satisfaction  to  ourselves.  Now, 
this  is  not  the  way  in  other  cases  of  a  gift.  Should  a  friend  come 
into  my  presence  with  some  dispensation  of  kindness,  it  is  enough 
to  put  the  whole  joy  of  it  into  my  heart,  that  I  hear  his  assurances 
of  good-will,  that  I  behold  his  countenance  of  benignity,  and  that 
I  see  the  offered  boon  held  out  to  me  for  acceptance.  It  is  true, 
that  I  would  neither  feel  the  charm  of  ail  this  liberality,  nor  at- 
tempt to  lay  hold  of  what  it  offers,  unless  I  gave  credit  to  the 
offerer.  But  then,  I  am  not  thinking  of  this  credit.  I  am  not 
perplexing  myself  with  any  question  about  its  reality.  I  am  not 
first  looking  to  myself,  that  I  may  see  whether  the  belief  is  there — 
and  then  looking  to  the  giver,  that  I  may  stretch  forth  a  receiving 
hand  to  the  fruit  of  his  generosity.  I  am  looking  all  the  while  to 
that  which  is  without  me ;  and  it  is  from  that  which  is  without 


310  scott's  tracts. 

me,  that  all  the  influences  of  hope  and  of  gratitude,  and  the  pleas- 
ure of  a  felt  deliverance  from  poverty,  descend  upon  my  soul.  It 
is  very  true,  that,  unless  I  gave  credit  to  my  visitor,  nothing  of  all 
this  would  be  felt :  and  I  may  even  carry  my  unbelief  so  far  as  to 
think  that  the  offer  was  intended,  not  to  relieve,  but  to  affront  me  ; 
and  that,  were  I  extending  my  hand  to  receive  it,  it  would  in- 
stantly be  drawn  back  again  in  derision,  by  my  insulting  acquaint- 
ance. So  that,  without  faith,  I  cannot  obtain  the  benefit  in  ques- 
tion. But  it  is  not  to  faith  as  an  article  in  the  agreement — it  is 
not  to  faith  as  a  meritorious  service — it  is  not  to  faith  as  the  term 
of  a  bargain,  that  the  benefit  is  rendered.  Faith  acts  no  other 
part  in  this  matter,  than  the  mere  opening  of  the  hand  does  in  the 
matter  of  putting  into  it  a  sum  of  money.  It  does  not  affect  the 
character  of  the  Gospel,  as  being  a  pure  matter  of  giving  on  the 
one  side,  and  of  receiving  on  the  other.  And  it  is  when  we  look 
to  God  in  the  light  of  a  Giver — it  is  when  we  look  to  Him  holding 
out  a  present,  and  beseeching  our  acceptance — it  is  when  we  look 
to  Him  setting  forth  Christ  to  the  world  as  a  propitiation  for  sin, 
and  setting  Him  forth  as  effectually  to  us,  as  if  there  were  no 
other  sinner  in  the  world  but  ourselves — it  is  when  the  outgoings 
of  the  mind's  regard  are  thus  turned  towards  the  God  who  is 
above  us,  and  the  promises  and  declarations  which  are  without 
us — and  not  when  the  mind  is  looking  anxiously  inward  upon  the 
operations  of  its  own  principles — it  is  then,  and  only  then,  that  the 
sinner  is  in  the  attitude  of  a  likely  subject  for  the  Gospel,  and  for 
the  reception  of  all  its  influences. 

It  has  been  well  observed,  that  the  mind  is  often  put  into  dis- 
quietude, by  looking  to  the  act  of  faith,  when  it  might  derive  to 
itself  peace,  and  comfort,  and  joy,  by  looking  to  the  object  of  faith. 
In  the  latter  case,  one  turns  to  the  mercy  of  God  in  Christ  freely 
held  out  to  him  ;  in  the  former  case,  he  turns  his  eye  towards  one 
of  his  own  mental  operations.  While  doing  the  one,  a  pure  and 
unclouded  hilarity  might  emanate  upon  the  heart,  from  the  coun- 
tenance of  the  all-perfect  Creator; — while  doing  the  other,  this 
light  is  but  reflected  back  again  in  dimness  and  deficiency,  from 
the  work  of  a  sinful  and  imperfect  creature.  The  one  is  like  tak- 
ing in  from  the  sun  in  the  firmament  a  flood  of  direct  and  unmiti- 
gated splendor  ;  the  other  is  like  taking  in  a  sullied  and  confused 
image  of  him,  thrown  back  on  the  spectator  from  the  surface  of 
a  foul  and  troubled  water.  Let  him  see  God  just  in  the  way  in 
which  God  is  soliciting  the  notice  of  the  guilty  towards  Him — let 
him  look  unto  Christ,  even  as  Christ  is  actually  set  forth  to  the 
View  of  the  world — let  him  direct  his  upward  gaze  to  that  spirit- 
ual canopy  of  light  and  of  truth  which  is  above  him — and,  from 
these,  through  the  medium  of  faith,  there  will  descend  upon  his 
soul,  that  which  can  clear,  and  elevate,  and  transform  it.  But  in- 
stead of  so  looking,  and  so  sending  forth  the  eye  of  his  contempla- 
tion, let  him  turn  it  with  minute  and  microscopic  search  towards 


m 


SCOTT  S    TRACTS.  311 

this  medium — let  his  attention  be  pointed  inwardly,  towards  the 
nature  and  quality  of  his  faith,  and  the  danger  is,  that  he  loses 
sight  of  the  very  things  which  furnish  faith  with  the  only  mate- 
rials for  its  exercise.  He  may  seek  in  vain  for  the  operation  of 
faith,  and  that,  just  because  the  objects  of  faith  are  withdrawn 
from  it.  He  may  seek  with  much  labor  and  anxiety  for  what  he 
cannot  find,  because,  when  the  things  to  be  looked  for  have  taken 
their  departure  from  the  mind's  eye,  the  exercise  of  looking  has 
ceased.  Instead  of  the  outgoings  of  his  belief  being  towards  the 
beseeching  God,  and  the  dying  Saviour,  and  all  the  evidences  and 
expressions  of  good-will  to  men,  with  which  the  doctrine  of  man's 
redemption  is  associated,  he  has  bent  an  anxious  examination 
towards  the  state  of  that  condition  in  which  he  conceives  the 
offered  mercy  of  the  Gospel  to  turn ;  and  amid  his  doubts  of  its 
existence,  or  his  doubts  of  its  entireness,  does  he  remain  without 
comfort  and  without  satisfaction  about  his  eternity. 

It  is  true,  that  without  faith  the  mind  is  in  darkness.  But  faith 
enlightens  a  dark  mind,  only  in  the  sense  in  which  an  open  win- 
dow enlightens  a  before  darkened  chamber.  It  is  not  the  window 
which  enlightens  the  room.  It  is  the  sun  which  enlightens  it. 
And  should  we,  sitting  in  our  chamber,  be  given  to  understand 
that  a  sight  of  the  sun  carries  some  delight  or  privilege  along  with 
it,  it  is  not  to  the  window  that  we  look,  but  to  the  sun  and  through 
the  window  that  we  look.  And  the  same  of  looking  to  Jesus. 
While  so  doing,  our  direct  employment  is  to  consider  Him — to 
think  of  the  truth  and  the  grace  that  are  stamped  upon  His  char- 
acter— to  hear  His  promises,  and  to  witness  the  honesty  and  the 
good-will  which  accompany  the  utterance  of  them — to  dwell  on 
the  power  of  his  death,  and  on  the  unquestionable  pledge  which  it 
affords,  that  upon  the  business  of  our  redemption  He  is  in  good 
earnest — to  cast  our  regard  on  His  unchangeable  priesthood,  and 
see,  that  by  standing  between  God  and  the  guilty,  He  has  opened 
a  way  by  which  the  approach  of  the  most  worthless  of  us  all  have 
been  consecrated  and  rendered  acceptable.  It  is  by  the  direct 
beaming  of  light  upon  the  soul,  from  such  truths  and  such  objects 
as  these,  that  the  soul  passes  out  from  its  old  state  into  a  new  state 
that  is  marvellous.  Anything  that  can  arrest  or  avert  the  eye  of 
contemplation  away  from  them,  is  like  the  passing  of  a  cloud  over 
the  great  luminary  of  all  our  comfort,  and  our  spiritual  manifesta- 
tion. If,  instead  of  looking  to  the  object  that  is  without  us,  from 
which  the  light  proceedeth,  we  look  only  to  the  organ  within  us, 
through  which  the  light  passeth  ;  we,  while  so  employed,  are  as 
little  looking  unto  Jesus,  as  he  is  looking  to  the  sun  in  the  firma- 
ment, all  whose  powers  are  absorbed  in  examining  the  composi- 
tion of  the  glass  of  his  window,  or  the  anatomical  construction  of 
his  eye.  The  songs,  and  the  offers  of  deliverance,  are  altogether 
unheeded  by  him  who  is  profoundly  intent,  at  the  time,  on  the 
phenomena  of  hearing.     The  beauties  of  the  surrounding  land- 


312  scott's  tracts. 

scape  may  scarcely  be  perceived,  or,  at  least,  not  be  relisbed  and 
admired  by  the  observer,  so  long  as  all  his  faculties  are  busily  en- 
gaged with  an  optical  demonstration.  And  the  proclamations  of 
Gospel  mercy  are  equally  unheard,  and  its  aspect  of  glad  and 
generous  invitation  is  equally  disregarded  by  him,  who,  rumina- 
ting on  the  mysteries  of  his  own  heart,  perplexes  himself  among 
the  depths  and  the  difficulties  of  faith. 

It  is  known  to  anatomists,  that  to  have  a  view  of  the  objects  of 
surrounding  nature,  the  image  of  all  that  is  visible  must  be  drawn 
out  on  the  retina  of  the  eye.  But  the  peasant,  who  knows  not 
that  he  has  a  retina,  has  just  as  vivid  a  perception  of  these  objects, 
as  the  philosopher  had  who  first  discovered  the  existence  of  it. 
And,  in  like  manner,  a  babe  in  Christ  might  have  a  lively  mani- 
festation of  the  Saviour,  who  knows  nothing  of  the  metaphysics 
of  faith — who  is  in  utter  darkness  about  all  the  controversies  to 
which  it  has  given  birth — who  sees  with  his  mental  eye,  while  in 
the  profoundest  ignorance  about  the  construction  of  his  mental  eye 
— who  cannot  dive  into  the  recesses  of  his  own  intellectual  consti- 
tution, but,  by  the  working  of  that  constitution,  has  caught  a  spirit- 
ual discernment  of  Him,  whom  to  see  and  to  know  is  life  everlasting. 
— "Father,  I  thank  thee,  that  whilst  thou  hast  hid  these  things  from 
the  wise  and  the  prudent,  thou  hast  revealed  them  unto  babes." 

There  is  not  a  readier  way  of  running  uncertainly,  than  stren- 
uously to  put  forth  effort  in  a  matter  over  which  the  will  has  no 
control :  and  this  is  often  done  by  those,  who,  in  their  anxious  de- 
sire to  get  that  faith  on  which  salvation  is  made  to  turn,  try,  with 
all  their  might  and  all  their  diligence,  to  believe.  Now  this  is  what 
we  never  can  do  separately  from  evidence.  To  carry  the  con- 
viction of  the  understanding,  without  proof  addressed  to  the  un- 
derstanding, is  impossible.  If  we  are  out  of  the  way  of  meeting 
with  the  evidence  of  the  truth,  we  never  will  attain  a  belief  of  the 
truth.  It  is  no  doubt  possible,  by  the  mere  dint  of  mental  exer- 
tion, to  conceive  what  a  doctrine  is,  and  to  retain  that  doctrine  in 
our  mind,  and  to  recall  it  when  it  happens  to  be  away  from  us: 
but  it  is  not  possible,  without  a  satisfying  evidence  of  the  doctrine, 
actually  to  believe  in  it.  Here  then  is  a  way  in  which  we  may 
incur  the  expense  of  effort,  and  the  effort  be  altogether  unavailing. 
We  may  be  trying  to  believe,  while  we  are  looking  the  wrong 
way  for  it.  It  is  not  merely  by  poring  over  the  lineaments  of  our 
own  heart — it  is  not  by  witnessing  the  deficiencies  of  our  faith, 
and  still  looking,  and  continuing  to  look  to  the  place  of  these  de- 
ficiencies— it  is  not  by  the  reflection  of  evidences  frohi  within, 
while  every  avenue  is  closed  of  communication  from  without,  that 
light  first  arises  in  the  midst  of  darkness.  To  obtain  any  such  re- 
flection, a  beam  of  manifestation  must  be  admitted  from  without, 
making  it  the  entrance  of  the  word  of  God  which  gives  light  unto 
us  and  the  Spirit  of  God  shining  upon  His  testimony,  which  causes 
the  demonstration  of  it  to  come  with  power,  and  with  assurance, 


scott's  tracts.  313 

upon  him  who  is  giving  earnest  heed  to  the  word  of  that  testi- 
mony. So  that,  on  the  other  hand,  there  is  a  way  in  which  the 
will  may  be  rightly  and  profitably  employed  in  the  matters  of  be- 
lieving. There  is  a  way  in  which  the  advice,  of  try  to  believe,  is 
applicable,  and  may  be  successfully  carried  into  effect.  It  is  by 
our  will  that  we  open  the  pages  of  the  Bible.  It  is  by  our  will 
that  we  stir  up  our  minds  to  lay  hold  of  Him  who  speaketh  there. 
It  is  by  our  will  that  we  fulfil  His  own  precept  of  hearkening  dil- 
igently. It  is  by  our  will  that  we  keep  ourselves  at  the  assigned 
post  of  meeting  between  us  and  the  Holy  Ghost ;  and  as  the  apos- 
tles did  before  us,  wait  for  His  coming  with  supplication  and 
prayer.  But  it  is  in  the  act  of  attending  to  the  word  which  is 
without  us,  that  light  finds  access  to  our  heart.  If  ever  it  fall  upon 
us  at  all,  this  is  the  way  in  which  it  will  come  ;  and,  if  we  are  not 
widely  mistaken,  we  utter  an  advice  which  is  applicable  to  the 
case  of  at  least  some  dark  and  disconsolate  inquirers,  when  we 
say,  that  instead  of  fetching  their  peace  and  their  joy  in  believing 
primarily  from  themselves,  they  should  fetch  it  from  the  truths 
which  are  without  them,  and  from  the  great  Fountain  of  Truth 
and  of  Grace  that  is  above  them.  Acquaint  thyself  with  thy 
Creator,  and  be  at  peace,  and  go  unto  Christ,  all  ye  who  labor  and 
are  heavy  laden,  and  He  will  give  you  rest. 

Thus  will  we  find  the  righteousness  that  we  are  in  quest  of. 
Thus  will  we  meet  a  plea  of  acceptance  already  made  out  for 
us,  and  be  given  to  perceive  that  the  only  obedience  in  which 
God  can  consistently  with  the  honors  of  His  government  admit 
us  into  His  favor,  is  an  obedience  which  has  been  already  rendered. 
If  we  commit  ourselves  to  this  with  a  perfect  feeling  of  security,  as 
the  ground  of  our  dependence,  it  will  never,  never  give  way  under 
us.  He  who  trusteth  in  Christ  shall  never  be  confounded  or  put  to 
shame.  The  righteousness  which  we  vainly  strive  to  make  out 
in  our  own  person,  is  worthless  as  pollution  itself,  when  put  by  the 
side  of  that  righteousness  which  has  been  already  made  out  in  the 
person  of  another ;  a  righteousness,  all  the  claims  of  which,  and 
all  the  rewards  of  which,  are  offered  to  us  ;  a  righteousness,  which, 
if  we  will  only  humble  ourselves  to  put  on,  shall  translate  us  into 
instant  reconciliation  with  God,  and,  at  length,  exalt  us  to  a  place 
of  unfading  glory.  Look  then  unto  Jesus.  Consider  Him  who  is 
the  Apostle  and  the  High  Priest  of  our  profession.  We  should 
cast  our  open  and  immediate  regard  upon  Him  who  is  evidently 
set  forth  crucified  before  us.  And  as  it  was  in  the  act  not  of  look- 
ing to  their  wounds,  but  in  the  act  of  looking  to  the  brazen  ser- 
pent, that  the  children  of  Israel  were  healed,  even  so  is  the  Son 
of  man  lifted  up,  "  that  whosoever  believeth  in  Him  should  not 
perish  but  have  everlasting  life." 

III.  We  have  already  attempted  to  prove,  that  the  man  who 
seeketh  a  righteousness  by  works,  seeks  it  in  a  way  which  must 
land  him  in  vanity  and  disappointment,  and  that  he  alone  has  at- 

40 


314  scott's  tracts. 

tained  the  position  with  which  he  may  take  up  and  be  satisfied, 
who  has  found  the  righteousness  that  is  by  faith.  He  alone  who 
has  accepted  of  the  Gospel  offer,  and  puts  his  trust  in  its  faithful- 
ness, knows  what  it  is  to  set  himself  down  under  a  secure  and  un- 
failing canopy  ;  and  to  delight  himself  greatly  with  the  abundance 
of  peace  which  he  there  enjoys.  It  cannot  be  adequately  con- 
ceived by  those  who  have  never  felt  it ;  and  therefore  it  is,  that 
when  a  man  looks  to  the  offer  of  that  righteousness  which  is  unto 
all,  and  upon  all  who  believe,  as  addressed  to  himself, — and  when, 
treating  it  accordingly,  he  makes  it  the  subject  of  his  actual  accep- 
tance, along  with  the  faith  which  has  taken  possession  of  him, — ■ 
then  enters  the  peace  of  God  in  Christ  Jesus,  which  passes  all  un- 
derstanding. When,  weaned  from  every  other  dependence,  he 
has  at  length  learned  to  leave  the  whole  weight  both  of  his  plea 
and  of  his  expectation  upon  the  Saviour,  it  is  not  easy  to  form  an 
adequate  thought  of  the  change  which  then  takes  place  upon  his 
condition ;  how,  by  so  doing,  the  whole  deadness  and  heaviness 
of  his  soul  are  cleared  away  ;  how,  as  if  loosed  from  a  confine- 
ment in  which  it  hath  lain  past  from  infancy,  it  breaks  out  into 
free  and  fearless  intercourse  with  that  God  before  whom  it  trem- 
bled ;  or  away  from  whom  all  its  thoughts  and  all  its  desires  lay 
hid  in  carnal  insensibility.  They  who  never  felt  of  faith  in  any 
other  way  than  as  a  mere  unmeaning  or  cabalistic  utterance,  and 
are  strangers  to  the  term  as  fixed  and  substantiated  in  experimen- 
tal reality,  on  a  positive  operation  of  the  soul,  perceive  not  the 
magnitude  nor  the  glory  of  that  transition  which  it  causeth  the 
soul  to  undergo.  They  know  not  the  import  of  being  made  alive 
thereby  unto  God.  But  there  are  some  who,  though  destitute  in 
fact  of  this  faith,  may  have  some  obscure  fancy  of  what  the  effect 
must  be,  when  the  Being,  with  whom  all  power  and  all  immensity 
stand  associated,  enters  into  a  new  relation  with  one  of  his  own 
creatures,  altogether  opposite  to  that  in  which  he  stood  before ; 
and.  instead  of  an  enemy  whom  one  fears,  or  a  master  whom  one 
dislikes,  or  a  dark  and  distant  personage,  from  whom  one  has  lived 
all  his  days  in  utter  estrangement,  he  draws  near  to  the  eye  of  the 
inner  man  in  the  living  character  of  a  friend,  and  admits  us  into 
the  number  of  his  children,  through  the  faith  that  is  in  Christ  Je- 
sus, and  pours  the  spirit  of  adoption  upon  us.  So  that,  unburdened 
of  guilt  and  of  suspicion,  we  may  come  unto  God  with  full  assur- 
ance of  heart,  as  we  would  do  to  a  reconciled  father.  When  such 
terms  as  these,  from  being  felt  as  sounds  of  mystery,  come  to  be 
imbodied  in  actual  fulfilment,  and  to  be  invested  with  the  mean- 
ing of  felt  and  present  realities;  then  does  the  inquirer  find  within 
himself,  that  to  become  a  partaker  of  the  faith  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, is  indeed  to  pass  out  of  darkness  into  a  light  that  is  marvel- 
lous. The  one  and  simple  circumstance  of  being  now  able  to  go 
out  and  in  with  confidence  unto  God,  opens  the  door  of  his  prison- 
house,  and  sets  him  at  liberty.     And  let  us  not  wonder,  that,  with 


scott's  tracts.  315 

the  new  hope  which  is  thus  made  to  dawn  upon  his  heart,  a  new 
feeling  enters  along  with  it,  and  a  new  affection  now  comes  to  in- 
spire it.  Who  can  say,  in  short,  that  the  entrance  of  the  faith  of 
the  Gospel  is  not  the  turning  point  of  a  new  character,  that  that  is 
not  the  moment  of  all  oJd  things  being  done  away,  from  which  the 
man  began  to  breathe  in  another  moral  atmosphere,  and  to  con- 
ceive purposes,  and  to  adopt  practices,  suited  to  another  field  of 
contemplation  now  placed  before  him  ?  And  thus,  by  the  single 
act  of  believing — by  giving  credit  to  the  word  of  God's  testimony, 
when  he  holds  himself  forth  to  us  as  God  in  Christ,  reconciling 
the  world  unto  himself,  and  not  imputing  unto  them  their  trespas- 
ses,— by  conceiving  of  Christ,  that  He  gives  an  honest  account  of 
the  errand  on  which  He  came,  when  He  says,  that  He  "  came  not 
to  condemn  the  world,  but  to  save  it," — by  conceding  the  honor 
of  truth  to  Him  who  is  the  Author  of  the  Bible,  and  so  believing 
just  as  it  is  there  spoken, — a  course  is  set  into  operation,  compe- 
tent to  the  effect  of  an  entire  revolution,  both  in  the  prospect  and 
in  the  moral  state  of  him  who  is  influenced  by  it, — translating  him 
from  a  state  of  darkness,  or  a  state  of  dismay,  to  peace,  and  joy, 
and  spiritual  life,  impressing  a  new  character  upon  his  heart,  and 
turning  into  a  new  course  of  joy  the  whole  of  his  habits  and  of  his 
history. 

Now,  it  is  in  the  prosecution  of  this  course — a  course  not  of  le- 
gal, but  of  evangelical  obedience — a  course  in  which,  instead  of 
winning  the  favor  of  God  as  the  result  of  it,  we  are  upheld  by  the 
favor  of  God  freely  conferred  upon  us  in  Christ  Jesus,  from  the 
commencement  and  through  the  whole  process  of  it, — a  course, 
in  which  we  walk  with  God  as  two  walk  together  who  are  agreed, 
instead  of  walking  with  Him  as  if  dragged  reluctantly  along  by  a 
force  which  it  were  even  death  to  bring  down  in  wrath  and  in  hos- 
tility against  us, — a  course  which  we  prosecute  with  the  will,  now 
gained  over  by  gratitude,  and  touched  by  the  love  of  moral  and 
spiritual  excellence,  and  enlightened  in  the  great  and  final  object 
of  saivation,  which  is  to  prepare  us  for  the  kingdom  of  God  in 
heaven,  by  setting  up  the  kingdom  of  God  in  our  hearts,  even 
righteousness,  and  peace,  and  joy  in  the  Holy  Ghost, — a  course, 
the  distinct  object  of  which  is  to  transform  the  character  of  man 
from  its  selfishness  and  its  ungodliness,  and  not  so  much  to  sur- 
round him  with  celestial  glories,  as  to  give  to  him  the  worth,  and 
the  feelings,  and  the  principles  of  a  celestial  mind. 

Now,  it  often  happens,  that  long  after  a  formal  admission  has 
been  given  to  the  doctrines  of  the  Gospel,  the  mind  may  practi- 
cally be  far  from  being  in  a  state  of  adjustment  with  a  course  of 
obedience,  prosecuted  in  such  a  spirit,  and  with  such  an  object 
as  we  have  now  been  describing.  There  may  be  a  course  of 
very  strenuous  performance  ;  but  the  old  legal  spirit  may  be  yet 
unquelled,  and  the  mind  of  the  inquirer  be  still  weighed  down  un- 
der a  sense  of  hopeless  and  inextricable  bondage.     There  may,  at 


31 G  scott's  tracts. 

the  same  time,  be  a  speculative  conviction  of  the  vanity  of  good 
works  ;  and  many  a  weary  attempt  be  made  to  raise  up  faith  with 
a  set  of  qualifications,  which  are  destitute,  in  themselves,  of  all 
power  and  of  all  sufficiency  to  propitiate  the  favor  of  God.     It, 
however,  cannot  be  disguised,  that  works,  in  some  shape  or  other, 
are  as  strenuously  called  for  under  the  latter,  as  under  the  former 
dispensation  ;  and  we  speak  of  an  actual  state  of  ambiguity  on  this 
subject,  in  which  many  have  been  involved,  and  where  many  have 
lingered  for  years  in  great  helplessness  and  distress,  when  we  say, 
that,  unable  to  attain  a  clear  and  satisfactory  perception  of  the 
way  in  which  faith  and  works  stand  related  to  salvation,  they  have 
toiled  without  an  object,  and  labored  to  get  onwards  without  com- 
ing sensibly  nearer  to  any  landing-place.     There  is  a  want  of 
drift  in  their  manifold  doings.     They  are  at  one  time  fearful  of 
being  in  the  wrong,  when  they  attempt  to  multiply  their  conform- 
ities to  the  divine  law ;  learning  so  much  from  one  class  of  theo- 
logians of  the  vanity  of  works,  and  the  danger  of  self-righteous- 
ness.    They  are,  at  another  time,  impelled  to  action  by  a  vague 
and  general  sense  of  the  importance  of  works ;  learning  from  the 
Bible,  and  even  from  these  very  theologians,  that  works,  brought 
down  to  utter  insignificance  at  one  part  of  the  doctrinal  argument, 
reappear  at  a  future  part  of  it,  vested  with  a  real  importance  in 
the  matter  of  salvation.     And  thus  do  they  vacillate  in  darkness, 
between  a  kind  of  general  urgency  to  do  upon  the  one  hand  ;  and, 
on  the  other,  a  kind  of  indistinct  impression  that,  as  a  Christian, 
his  business  is  not  to  do,  but  to  believe.     And  so  there  is  either  a 
halting  of  the  mind,  or  an  unceasing  vibration  of  the  mind,  be- 
tween two  opinions ;  neither  of  which,  at  the  same  time,  is  very 
distinctly  apprehended.     The  Christian  who  is  steadfast  and  im- 
movable, and  always  abounding  in  the  work  of  the  Lord,  knows 
that  his  labor  in  the  Lord  is  not  in  vain.     Now  he  does  not  know 
this.     He  has  been  schooled,  by  an  ill-conceived  orthodoxy,  into  a 
suspicion  of  the  worth  and  efficacy  of  all  labor,  and  so  is  haunted 
and  harassed  by  the  imagination,  that  all  his  labor  is  in  vain.    The 
perplexity  thickens  around  him,  among  the  uncertain  sounds  of  a 
trumpet  coming  to  his  ear,  with  what  to  him  are  dark  and  contra- 
dictory intimations  ;  and  we  are  not  drawing  a  fanciful  represen- 
tation, but  offering  a  faithful  copy  of  what  is  often  realized  in  hu- 
man experience,  when  we  say,  that  there  are  many  inquirers,  who, 
thus  lost  and  bewildered  in  the  midst  of  difficulties,  embark  in  a 
race  that  is  at  once  fatiguing  and  fruitless,  and  engage  in  a  pain- 
ful service,  which  they  afterwards  experience  to  be  utterly  un- 
productive. 

The  life  and  experience  of  the  Rev.  Thomas  Scott,  the  Author 
of  the  excellent  Tracts  which  compose  the  present  volume,  afford 
a  striking  exemplification  of  the  different  states  of  activity  in  the 
prosecution  of  a  religious  life,  which  we  have  endeavored  to  illus- 
trate.    He  was  long  perplexed  and  bewildered  amidst  the  errors 


scott's  tracts.  317 

which  we  have  been  exposing,  and  made  many  vain  and  fruitless 
attempts  to  attain  to  peace,  by  endeavoring  to  establish  a  right- 
eousness of  his  own,  and  it  was  not  till  humbled  under  a  sense  of 
the  vanity  and  fruitlessness  of  all  such  attempts,  that  he  took  refuge 
in  the  all-sufficient  righteousness  of  Christ,  and  found  that  peace 
he  was  so  earnestly  in  quest  of.  In  his  "  Force  of  Truth,"  he  gives 
an  honest  and  faithful  delineation  of  the  severe  and  protracted 
conflict  he  sustained,  ere  he  found  himself  established  on  the  sure 
foundation  of  the  righteousness  which  is  by  faith.  He  experimen- 
tally found,  that  such  an  obedience  as  man  can  render,  must  be 
an  obedience  without  hope,  and  without  affection,  and  without  one 
element  which  can  liken  it  to  the  obedience  of  heaven — that  the 
mere  animal  drudgery,  to  which  a  man  feels  himself  impelled,  by 
the  impulse  of  force,  or  of  fear,  upon  his  corporeal  powers,  bears 
not  only  a  different,  but  an  essentially  opposite,  character,  to  that 
of  an  acceptable  loyalty.  He  found  that  it  is  no  religion  at  all, 
unless  the  heart  consent  to  it,  and  the  taste  be  engaged  on  its  side, 
and  the  love  which  terror  scares  away,  be  the  urging  and  inspir- 
ing principle ;  and  the  Lawgiver,  instead  of  laying  a  reluctant 
constraint  upon  His  creatures,  sits  enthroned  in  far  more  glorious 
supremacy  over  their  will,  thus  exalting  the  service  of  God,  from 
what  it  must  be  under  the  law,  to  what  it  may  be  under  the  Gos- 
pel. But  when  the  Gospel  came  to  him,  in  all  the  power  and  be- 
neficence of  conversion  and  grace,  transforming  the  service  of 
God  from  the  oldness  of  the  letter  to  the  newness  of  the  spirit,  by 
listing,  on  the  side  of  godliness,  all  the  faculties  and  affections  of 
his  moral  nature,  he  became  the  humble,  devoted,  and  self-denying 
Christian;  and  admirably  illustrated  the  sure  operation  of  genuine 
faith,  in  producing  practical  righteousness,  and  in  forming  those 
who  are  under  its  influence,  in  all  the  virtues  and  accomplishments 
of  Christianity.  Mr.  Scott  was  an  eminently  useful  minister  of 
the  Gospel.  His  sound,  judicious,  and  practical  writings,  form  a 
most  valuable  accession  to  the  theology  of  our  country.  The  les- 
sons of  such  a  life,  and  such  an  experience  as  he  has  honestly  de- 
lineated, are  highly  instructive  to  every  class  of  Christians,  but,  to 
the  sincere  inquirer  after  truth,  we  would  especially  recommend 
them  ;  and,  under  such  convictions  as  the  "Force  of  Truth"  may 
produce,  he  will  find  in  the  subsequent  Tracts,  which  compose  the 
present  volume,  an  excellent  and  practical  exposition  of  those 
more  peculiar  doctrines  of  the  Gospel,  the  right  understanding  of 
which  is  so  necessary  to  the  attainment  of  peace  and  of  holiness  ; 
and  these  expositions  will  derive  a  peculiar  weight  and  importance, 
as  coming  from  such  a  sound  and  experimental  Christian. 


INTRODUCTORY  ESSAY 

TO 

PRIVATE   THOUGHTS   ON   RELIGION 

AND 

A   CHRISTIAN   LIFE. 
BY  WILLIAM  BEVERIDGE,  D.D. 


There  is  a  passage  in  the  New  Testament,  where  the  law  is 
made  to  stand  to  the  sinner  in  the  relation  of  a  first  husband  ; 
and  on  this  relation  being  dissolved,  which  it  is  at  the  moment 
when  the  sinner  becomes  a  believer,  then  Christ  stands  to  him  in 
the  relation  of  a  second  husband  ;  under  which  new  relation,  he 
brings  forth  fruit  unto  God,  or,  to  use  the  expression  of  the  apostle, 
"  lives  unto  God."  There  is  another  passage  from  which  we  can 
gather,  what  indeed  is  abundantly  manifest  from  the  whole  of 
Scripture,  that  to  live  unto  God  is  in  every  way  tantamount  to 
living  unto  Christ — it  being  there  represented  as  the  general  habit 
of  believers,  "  to  live  no  longer  unto  themselves,  but  unto  Him  who 
died  for  them  and  rose  again."  So  that  though  there  be  no  single 
quotation,  where  the  two  phrases  are  brought  together,  still  it  is  a 
sound,  because  truly  a  scriptural  representation  of  the  state  of  a 
believer,  that  he  is  dead  unto  the  law,  and  alive  unto  Christ. 

Now  we  are  sensible,  that  these,  and  similar  phrases,  have  been 
understood  in  two  meanings,  which,  though  not  opposite,  are  at 
least  wholly  distinct  from  each  other ;  that  is,  either  as  expressive 
of  the  judicial  state,  or  the  personal  character  of  a  believer.  By 
one's  judicial  state,  we  mean  that  state  into  which  he  is  put  by  the 
judgment  or  sentence  of  a  law.  If  the  law,  for  example,  con- 
demn us,  we  are  judicially,  by  that  law,  in  a  state  of  condemna- 
tion. This  may  be  viewed  distinctly  from  our  personal  character. 
Now  the  first  meaning  of  the  phrases,  or  that  by  which  they  are 
expressive  of  a  judicial  state,  would  be  more  accurately  rendered, 
by  slightly  changing  each  of  the  phrases,  into  "dead  by  the  law," 
and  "  alive  by  Christ."  Whereas  the  "  being  dead  unto  the  law," 
and  "  alive  unto  Christ,"  serve,  without  any  change,  accurately  to 


BEVERIDGE  S    PRIVATE    THOUGHTS.  319 

express  the  second  meaning,  or  that  which  is  descriptive  of  the 
personal  character  of  those  to  whom  it  is  applied.  There  is  no 
liberty  used  with  the  Bible,  when  we  affirm,  that  whether  the  one 
or  other  of  these  meanings  be  indeed  the  meaning  in  any  particular 
case,  the  doctrine  involved  in  each  is  true  and  scriptural  doctrine 
— that,  in  the  first  instance,  every  believer  is  dead  by  the  law,  and 
alive  by  Christ ;  and  that,  in  the  second  instance,  he  is  dead  unto 
the  law,  and  alive  unto  Christ, — or,  in  other  words,  that  in  whom- 
soever the  former  truth  has  been  realized,  the  latter  truth  shall  be 
realized  also. 

Every  believer,  and  indeed  every  man  is  dead  by  the  law. 
This  is  naturally  the  judicial  state  of  all.  The  law  issued  its  com- 
mandments, and  made  death  the  penalty  of  their  violation.  We 
have  all  incurred  that  penalty.  It  demanded  not  any  given  frac- 
tion of  obedience,  but  a  whole  obedience — and  this  we  have  all 
come  short  of.  We  have  at  least  incurred  the  sentence ;  and  if 
the  execution  of  it  has  not  yet  been  fully  inflicted,  it  is  at  least  in 
sure  reserve  for  those  on  whom  it  is  to  fall.  They  are  like  male- 
factors in  custody.  Their  doom  is  awaiting  them.  They  are  not 
yet  dead  in  reality,  but  they  are  dead  in  law.  They  have  the 
dread  prospect  of  the  reality  before  them ;  and  if  they  have  nought 
but  the  law  to  deal  with,  they  may  well  tremble  or  be  in  despair, 
as  the  prisoners  of  a  hopeless  condemnation. 

The  greater  part  of  men  are  at  ease,  even  amid  the  urgencies 
of  a  state  so  alarming.  That  they  have  broken  the  law  of  God 
gives  them  no  concern ;  and  their  life  passes  as  carelessly  along, 
as  if  the  future  reckoning,  and  future  vengeance,  were  all  a  fable. 
So  cheap  do  they  hold  the  high  jurisprudence  of  Heaven,  that  they 
are  scarcely  conscious  of  having  offended  against  it ;  or  if  ever 
visited  with  the  suspicion  that  their  obedience  is  not  up  to  the  lofty 
standard  of  God's  commandments,  they  compound  the  matter  in 
another  way,  and  bring  down  the  commandments  of  God  to  the 
lowly  standard  of  their  own  obedience.  God  hath  revealed  Him- 
self to  the  world,  under  the  impressive  character  of  a  God  who 
is  not  to  be  mocked — yet  would  they  inflict  upon  Him  most  de- 
grading mockery,  by  robbing  every  proclamation  of  His  against 
the  transgressors  of  the  law  of  all  effect  and  all  significancy.  If 
there  be  any  dignity  in  Heaven's  throne,  or  any  truth,  and  power, 
and  force  of  character  in  Him  who  sitteth  thereon,  His  ordinations 
must  stand  fast,  and  His  penalties,  by  which  their  authority  is 
guarded,  must  have  fulfilment.  The  government  of  the  Supreme 
would  be  despoiled  of  all  its  majesty,  if  mercy  were  ever  at  hand 
to  obliterate  the  guilt  of  our  rebellion  against  it.  The  carnal  heart 
of  man  may  be  proof  against  these  demonstrations  of  guilt  and  of 
danger;  yet,  notwithstanding,  it  is  true  that  we  have  incurred  the 
debt,  and  come  under  the  denunciations  of  a  law,  whereof  it  has 
been  said,  that  heaven  and  earth  must  pass  away  ere  one  jot  or 
one  tittle  of  it  shall  fail. 


320  beveridge's  private  thoughts. 

This  is  the  appalling  condition  of  humanity,  however  seldom  it 
may  be  adverted  to,  and  however  slightly  it  may  be  felt,  in  the 
listlessness  of  nature.  To  the  great  majority  of  men,  all  secure 
and  unconscious  as  they  are,  it  gives  no  disturbance.  They  are 
so  much  hurried  with  the  manifold  relations  in  which  they  stand 
to  the  things  and  the  interests  that  are  around  them,  that  they 
overlook  their  great  relation  to  God  the  Lawgiver,  and  to  that 
law,  all  whose  mandates  have  a  force  and  a  sanction  that  cannot 
be  recalled.  They  are  asleep  to  the  awful  realities  of  their  state. 
They  have  trampled  upon  an  authority  which  must  be  vindi- 
cated. They  have  incurred  a  threatening  which  must  be  dis- 
charged. They  have  insulted  a  throne  whose  dignity  must  be 
asserted — and  cast  contempt  on  a  government,  which  shall  rise  in 
its  might  and  its  majesty  from  the  degradation  which  they  have 
tried  to  inflict  upon  it.  The  high  attributes  of  the  Divinity  are 
against  them.  His  Justice  demands  a  satisfaction.  His  Holiness 
cannot  but  manifest  the  force  of  its  recoil  from  moral  evil.  His 
word  stands  committed  to  the  death  and  the  destruction  of  sinners 
— and  a  nature  so  immutable  as  His,  never  can  recede  from  those 
great  principles  which  mark  the  character  of  His  administration. 
The  greater  part  of  men  escape  from  all  this  terror,  while  they 
live  in  mere  insensibility  ;  and  some  there  are.  who,  because  less 
enormous  transgressors  than  their  fellows,  can  lull  their  every  ap- 
prehension, and  be  at  ease.  But  the  law  will  admit  of  no  com- 
promise. It  will  treat  with  no  degree  or  modification  of  evil. 
They  have  broken  some  of  the  things  contained  in  the  book  of 
God's  law,  and  by  the  law  they  are  dead. 

The  most  exempt,  perhaps,  from  all  disquietude  on  the  score  of 
that  death  to  which  the  law  has  condemned  them,  are  they  who, 
decorous  in  all  the  proprieties,  and  honorable  in  all  the  equities, 
and  alive,  by  the  tenderness  of  a  softened,  sympathetic  nature,  to 
all  the  kindnesses  of  life,  stand  the  freest  from  all  those  visible  de- 
linquencies by  which  the  law  is  most  notoriously  and  most  dis- 
gracefully violated.  They  lie  not — they  steal  not — they  defraud 
not.  They  are  ever  prompt  in  humanity,  and  most  punctual  in 
justice.  They  acquit  themselves  of  every  relative  duty  to  the 
satisfaction  of  those  who  are  the  objects  of  it ;  and  exemplary  in 
all  the  moralities  of  our  social  state,  they  sustain  upon  earth  a  high 
and  honorable  reputation.  Nevertheless  it  is  possible,  nay  it  is  fre- 
quent, that  a  man  may  be  signalized  by  all  these  graces  of  char- 
acter, and  yet  be  devoid  of  godliness.  The  first  and  greatest 
commandment,  which  is  the  love  of  God,  may  be  the  object,  not 
of  his  occasional,  but  of  his  constant  and  habitual  disobedience. 
In  reference  to  this  part  of  the  law,  he  may  have  not  merely  fallen 
into  many  sinful  acts,  but  more  desperate  still,  he  may  be  in  a  con- 
tinual state  of  sinfulness.  Instead  of  offending  God  at  some  times 
by  the  deeds  of  his  hand,  he  may  be  offending  him  at  all  times, 
by  that  settled  and  invariable  bent  which  there  is  in  the  desires 


beveridge's  private  thoughts.  321 

of  his  heart.  That  bent  may  be  wholly  towards  the  world,  and 
wholly  away  from  him  who  made  the  world.  He  may  have  a 
thousand  constitutional  virtues  :  to  use  a  familiar  expression,  he 
may  have  many  good  points  or  properties  of  character,  and  yet 
God  not  be  in  all  his  thoughts.  His  Father  in  heaven  may  have  as 
little  reason  to  be  pleased  with  him,  as  an  earthly  father  with  that 
child,  in  whose  history  there  may  be  a  number  of  conformities 
with  his  own  will,  but  in  whose  heart  there  is  an  obvious  sullen- 
ness,  or  at  least  an  utter  disregard  and  indifference  towards  him. 
"Give  me  thy  heart,"  says  God,  and  "Love  Him  with  all  thy  heart," 
says  the  law  of  God.  It  is  by  viewing  the  law,  in  all  its  height, 
that  we  are  made  to  feel  how  deep  the  condemnation  is  into  which 
the  law  has  placed  us.  Our  actions  may  look  fair  in  the  eye  of 
society,  while  it  is  manifest,  to  the  eye  of  our  own  conscience,  that 
our  affections  are  altogether  set  on  time,  and  on  the  creature,  and 
altogether  turned  from  the  Creator.  Those  virtues,  which  give  us 
a  flourishing  name  upon  earth,  are  not  enough  to  transplant  us 
into  heaven.  The  law  which  said,  "  Do  these  things  and  live," 
finds  its  very  first  doing,  or  demand,  unsatisfied,  and  bars  our  en- 
trance into  heaven.  It  convicts  us,  not  perhaps  of  many  specific 
sins  ;  but,  most  awfully  decisive  of  our  fortune  through  eternity, 
it  convicts  us  of  an  unremitting  course  or  current  of  sinfulness ; 
and  so,  dead  by  the  law,  the  gate  of  life  is  shut  against  us. 

The  counterpart  to  this  awful  truth,  that  by  the  law  the  sinner 
is  dead,  is  that  by  Christ  the  believer  is  made  alive.  We  may  un- 
derstand, in  word  and  in  letter,  how  this  can  be,  even  though  we 
ourselves  have  had  no  part  in  the  process.  We  may  have  the  knowl- 
edge, though  perhaps  not  the  faith  in  it ;  and  just  as  a  spectator 
might  look  intelligently  to  a  process  in  which  he  does  not  person- 
ally share,  so  might  we  have  the  literal  apprehension  of  that  way 
by  which  the  sinner,  who  by  the  law  is  judicially  dead,  might  by 
Christ  become  judicially  alive.  But  aware  of  it  though  we  be,  it 
cannot  be  too  often  reiterated  ;  and  may  the  Spirit  give  a  power 
and  a  demonstration  to  this  important  truth,  when  we  say  again 
how  it  is  that  the  transgressor  is  made  free.  The  sentence  then 
is  not  annulled,  it  is  only  transferred.  It  is  lifted  up  from  his  head, 
because  laid  on  the  head  of  another,  who  rather  than  that  man 
should  die,  did  Himself  bear  the  burden  of  it.  For  this  purpose 
did  he  bow  Himself  down  unto  the  sacrifice,  and  submitted  to  that 
deep,  that  mysterious  endurance,  under  which  He  had  to  sustain 
the  weight  of  a  world's  atonement.  The  vials  of  the  Lawgiver's 
wrath  were  exhausted  upon  Him.  The  law  was  magnified  and 
made  honorable  in  Him.  In  Him  the  work  of  vengeance  was 
completed,  and  every  attribute  of  the  Godhead  that  man  had 
insulted  by  his  disobedience,  did,  on  the  cross  of  Christ,  obtain  its 
ample  reparation.  There,  and  under  a  weight  of  suffering  which 
nought  but  the  strength  of  the  Divinity  could  uphold,  the  sacred- 
ness  of  the  Divinity  was  awfully  manifested  ;  when,  like  a  rain- 

41 


322  beveridge's  private  thoughts. 

bow  after  the  storm,  the  mercy  of  heaven  arose  out  of  the  dark 
and  warring  elements,  and  has  ever  since  shone  upon  our  world, 
like  a  beauteous  halo  that  now  circles  and  irradiates  all  the  other 
perfections  of  the  Godhead.  And  the  sight  of  it  is  as  free  to  all 
as  is  the  sun  in  the  firmament.  The  elements  of  light  and  of  air, 
and  the  other  common  bounties  of  nature,  are  not  more  designed 
for  the  use  of  each  and  all  of  the  human  species,  than  is  the  widely 
sounding  call  of  "  Look  unto  me  all  ye  ends  of  the  earth,  and  be 
ye  saved."  And  whosoever  he  be  that  looks,  and  looks  believ- 
ingly,  shall  live.  He  is  lightened  of  the  burden  of  his  guilt  so 
soon  as  he  puts  faith  in  the  Saviour.  That  great  peace-offering 
for  the  sins  of  the  world,  becomes  a  peace-offering  unto  him.  He 
exchanges  conditions  with  his  surety.  His  guilt  is  put  to  Christ's 
account,  and  Christ's  righteousness  is  put  to  his  account.  He  ob- 
tains his  full  discharge  from  the  sentence  that  was  against  him  ; 
and  whereas  by  the  law  he  was  dead,  he  hath  made  his  escape 
from  this  judgment,  and  now  by  Christ  is  alive.* 

We  wish  that  we  could  give  the  adequate  impression  of  that 
perfect  welcome  and  good-will,  wherewith  all  men  are  invited  to 
the  mercy-seat.  Under  the  economy  of  the  law  there  was  a  curse 
pronounced  upon  every  one  who  continued  not  in  all  the  words 
that  were  written  in  its  book  to  do  them  ;  and  the  question  is,  how 
can  any  who  has  transgressed  so  much  as  one  of  these  precepts, 
make  his  escape  from  this  felt  denunciation  ?  Many  there  are  who, 
to  bring  this  about,  would  still  keep  up  the  old  economy  of  the  law, 
though  in  such  a  reduced  and  mutilated  way,  as  might  permit  of  an 
outlet  to  all  but  the  most  enormous  of  criminals.  But  the  Gospel 
provides  this  outlet  in  another  way,  more  direct,  and  distinct,  and 
consistent,  by  taking  down  the  old  economy  and  setting  up  a  new 
economy  altogether.  Christ  hath  redeemed  us  from  the  curse  of  the 
law  being  made  a  curse  for  us  ;  and  while  by  this  expedient  the  hon- 
ors of  the  commandment  have  been  fully  vindicated — by  this  expe- 
dient, also,  the  mercy  of  God,  as  if  released  from  the  impediment 
which  held  it,  now  goes  forth  rejoicingly,  and  in  all  its  amplitude,  to 
the  farthest  limits  of  a  guilty  world.  There  is  not  one  so  sunk  in 
iniquity,  that  God,  in  Christ,  does  not  beseech  to  enter  forthwith 
into  reconciliation.  There  is  not  one  man  under  sentence  of 
death  by  the  law,  to  whom  eternal  life  is  not  offered,  and  offered 
freely,  as  the  gift  of  God  through  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord.  The 
sceptre  of  forgiveness  is  held  out  even  to  the  chief  of  sinners  ;  and 
a  way  of  access  has  been  opened,  by  which  one  and  all  of  them 
are  invited  to  draw  nigh.  Heaven  would  have  shrunk,  so  ethe- 
real and  so  sensitive  is  its  holiness — it  would  have  shrunk,  in  quick 
and  immediate  recoil,  from  the  approaches  of  the  guilty  ;  but  the 
way  by  which  they  now  come  is  a  consecrated  way,  consecrated 

:  *  For  a  full  and  explicit  statement  of  this  doctrine,  we  refer  the  reader  to  the  Gth, 
7th.  8th,  and  9th  articles  of  Bishop  Beveridge's  belief,  as  drawn  up  by  himself  in  the 
following  Treatise. 


beveridge's  private  thoughts.  323 

by  the  blood  of  an  everlasting  covenant ;  and  along  which  all  of 
us  are  beckoned  to  move,  by  every  call,  and  every  signal  of  en- 
couragement. We  are  dead  by  the  law,  but  it  is  a  death  from 
which  we  are  bidden,  by  the  voice  of  the  Gospel,  to  come  forth. 
And  he  that  belie veth  therein,  "  though  he  were  dead,  yet  shall  he 
live." 

This  is  the  truth  implied  in  the  expression,  that  a  Christian  is 
dead  by  the  law,  and  alive  by  Christ.  We  shall  now  consider 
the  truth  implied  in  the  other  expression,  that  a  Christian  is  dead 
unto  the  law,  and  alive  unto  Christ.  The  former  expression  is 
significant  of  the  judicial  state  of  a  believer.  The  latter  is  sig- 
nificant of  his  personal  character.  We  may  perhaps  better  un- 
derstand the  phrase  of  being  "  dead  unto  the  law,"  when  we  think 
of  such  analogous  phrases,  as,  the  being  dead  unto  sin ;  or  dead 
unto  the  world  ;  or  dead  to  the  fascinations  of  pleasure ;  or  dead 
to  the  sensibilities  of  the  heart ;  or  dead  to  the  urgencies  of  temp- 
tation. It  expresses  character,  for  it  expresses  man's  insensibility, 
or  the  property  that  he  has  of  being  unmoved  by  certain  objects 
that  are  addressed  to  him,  but  which  either  pleasurably  or  pain- 
fully affect  the  feelings  of  other  men.  He  who  can  look  unsoft- 
ened  and  unimpressed  on  a  scene  of  wretchedness,  or  of  cruel 
suffering,  is  dead  to  compassion.  He  who  pities,  and  is  in  tender- 
ness, is  alive  to  it.  He  who  can  look  without  delight  on  the  glo- 
ries of  a  landscape,  is  dead  to  the  charms  of  nature's  scenery. 
He  who  can  be  told,  without  emotion,  of  some  noble  deeds  of 
generosity  or  honor,  is  dead  to  the  higher  beauties  of  the  mind,  to 
the  charms  of  moral  grace,  or  of  moral  greatness. 

A  man  is  dead  unto  that,  which,  when  present  to  him  as  an  ob- 
ject of  thought,  is  nevertheless  not  an  object  of  feeling  ;  and  more 
especially  when  that  which  is  lovely  is  placed  within  his  view,  and 
no  love  is  awakened  by  it.  It  will  therefore  require  some  expla- 
nation, that  we  might  apprehend  aright  the  phrase  of  the  apostle — 
"  dead  to  the  law."  He  cannot  mean  to  say  of  himself,  that  he  is 
dead  to  the  beauties  of  that  holiness  which  it  contains — that  he  is 
dead  to  the  worth  of  those  virtues  which  lie  engraven  either  on 
the  first  or  second  division  of  its  tablet  of  jurisprudence — that  he 
sees  nought  to  admire  in  the  godliness  that  is  set  forth  in  the  one, 
or  the  humanity  that  is  set  forth  in  the  other — that  he  is  utterly 
devoid  of  aught  like  a  taste,  or  an  inclination  within  him,  which 
can  at  all  respond  to  that  picture  of  moral  excellence  which  the 
law  puts  before  him  :  and  so  yielding  no  homage  of  desire  towards 
it,  he  may  have  as  good  as  renounced  it  in  his  doings.  This 
surely  is  not  the  interpretation  which  can  be  put  upon  it;  for  the 
apostle  elsewhere  says  of  himself  that  he  delighted  in  the  law  : 
and  he  eulogizes  it  as  holy,  and  just,  and  good.  Holy  men  of  old 
loved  the  law,  and  it  was  their  meditation  all  the  day  long — and 
the  lyre  of  the  Psalmist  is  re-echoed  by  the  longings  of  every 
Christian  heart,  when  he  says,  "  O  how  I  love  thy  law ;"  and 


324  beveridge's  private  thoughts. 

"blessed  is  the  man  that  delighteth  greatly  in  its  command- 
ments." 

There  must  be  something  else  then,  in  and  about  the  law,  to 
which  a  believer  is  dead,  than  either  the  Tightness  of  its  precepts, 
or  the  moral  and  spiritual  beauty  of  its  perfections,  when  these 
are  realized  upon  the  character.  Every  true  believer  is  most 
thoroughly  alive  both  to  the  one  and  the  other — and  the  question 
remains,  What  is  it  of  the  law  to  which  he  has  become  dead  ? 
Perhaps  this  question  is  best  answered  by  the  apostle's  own  state- 
ment, that  we  are  dead  in  Christ,  or  that  we  have  been  partakers 
in  his  death — not  that  we  partake  with  him  in  its  sufferings,  for 
this  he  endured  alone,  but  we  partake  with  him  in  its  immunities, 
now  that  the  sufferings  are  over.  The  believer  stands  now  in  the 
same  relation  to  the  law,  that  the  man  does,  who  has  already  sus- 
tained the  execution  of  its  sentence  upon  his  person.  It  has  no 
further  claim  upon  him.  He  needs  to  fear  no  more,  for  he  has  to 
suffer  no  more.  Its  threatenings  have  all  been  discharged — not 
upon  himself,  it  is  true,  but  upon  another  for  his  sake,  and  by  whom 
they  have  forever  been  averted  from  his  own  soul.  He  may  now 
fear  as  little,  and  feel  as  little,  of  the  law's  severity,  as  can  the 
dead  body  of  the  executed  criminal :  and  it  is  in  this  sense  that 
the  believer  is  dead  unto  the  law — not  dead  to  the  worth  and  the 
loveliness  of  its  commandments,  but  altogether  dead  to  the  terror 
of  its  condemnation — not  unmoved  by  the  grace  and  the  Tightness 
of  its  moralities,  but  wholly  unmoved,  because  now  wholly  placed 
beyond  the  reach  of  its  menaces — not  dead  to  its  voice,  when  it 
points  to  the  way  of  peace  and  pleasantness,  but  now  conclusively 
dead  to  its  voice  as  a  relentless  judge,  or  its  countenance  as  a  fierce 
and  determined  avenger,  so  that  the  believer  may  at  once  walk 
before  God  without  fear,  and  yet  walk  before  Him  in  righteous- 
ness and  in  holiness. 

The  older  authors,  whose  writings  are  so  much  more  richly 
fraught  than  those  of  our  own  days  with  the  produce  of  deep  and 
well-exercised  intellect,  on  the  various  questions  of  theology,  tell 
us  of  the  law  being  now  set  aside  as  a  covenant,  while  it  remains 
with  us  as  a  rule  of  life.  This  single  change  of  economy  teaches 
us,  to  what  of  the  law  it  is  that  we  are  dead,  and  to  what  of  it  we 
are  still  alive.  We  are  dead  to  all  those  jealousies  which  are  apt 
to  arise  about  the  terms  and  the  punctualities  of  a  bargain.  There 
is  no  longer  the  lifting  up  of  a  bond,  upon  the  one  side,  and  this 
reacted  to  by  the  spirit  of  bondage,  upon  the  other.  There  are  a 
dread  and  a  distrust,  and  the  feeling  of  a  divided  interest,  between 
two  parties,  when  it  is  the  business  of  the  one  to  look  after  the 
due  performance  of  certain  covenanted  articles,  and  of  the  other, 
by  his  square  and  regular  performance  of  these,  just  to  do  as  much 
as  that  he  may  escape  the  denounced  penalty,  or  as  that  he  may 
earn  the  stipulated  reward.  "I  call  you  no  longer  servants  but 
sons,"  did  our  Saviour  say  to  His  disciples ;  and  this,  perhaps, 


bevebidge's  pbivate  thoughts  325 

goes  most  effectually  to  distinguish  between  the  obedience  which 
is  under  the  old,  and  that  which  is  under  the  new  economy.  We 
do  the  very  same  things  under  both,  but  in  a  wholly  different 
spirit.  As  sons,  we  do  them  from  the  feeling  of  love.  As  ser- 
vants, we  do  them  by  the  force  of  law.  It  is  the  spontaneous  taste 
of  the  one.  It  is  the  servile  task  of  the  other.  The  meat  and 
drink  of  the  servant  lie  in  the  hire  which  is  given  for  the  doing  of 
his  master's  will.  The  meat  and  drink  of  the  son  lie  in  the  very 
doing  of  that  will.  He  does  not  feel  it  to  be  a  service,  but  the 
very  solace  and  satisfaction  of  his  own  renovated  spirit.  It  is 
well  to  apprehend  this  distinction  ;  for  it,  in  truth,  is  that  which 
marks,  most  precisely,  the  evangelical  from  the  legal  obedience. 
To  all  these  feelings,  which  have  been  termed  the  feelings,  or  the 
fears  of  legality,  the  believer  under  the  economy  of  the  Xew 
Testament  is  altogether  dead.  He  is  not  exempted  from  service, 
but  it  is  service  in  the  newness  of  the  spirit,  and  not  in  the  oldness 
of  the  letter — not  gone  about  in  the  style  of  a  hireling,  who  looks 
merely  to  his  reward,  and  is  satisfied  if  he  can  but  fulfil  the  liter- 
alities  of  that  contract  by  which  the  reward  is  secured  to  him. 
We  see  how  at  once,  by  this  single  change,  a  new  character  is 
given  to  his  obedience — how,  when  dead  to  the  law,  which  tells 
him  to  do  this  and  live,  he  looks  away  from  all  those  narrow  sus- 
picions, and  all  those  besetting  fears,  wherewith  a  mercenary 
service  is  encompassed — and  how  when  alive  to  the  Gospel,  which 
first  gives  him  life,  and  then  bids  him  do,  he  instantly  ascends 
upon  a  higher  walk  of  obedience,  being  now  urged  onward  by  a 
taste  for  the  virtues  of  the  law,  and  not  by  the  terror  of  its  viola- 
tion— and  instead  of  looking  for  some  distinct  reward  after  the 
keeping  of  the  commandments,  which  in  truth  argues  nothing 
spontaneously  good  in  the  character  at  all,  feeling  even  now,  that 
in  the  keeping  of  the  commandments  there  is  a  very  great  reward. 
With  this  explanation  of  what  it  is  to  be  dead  unto  the  law,  we 
may  fully  understand  what  it  is  to  live  unto  Christ.  As  to  be 
dead  unto  any  object,  is  to  want  that  sensibility  which  the  object 
is  fitted  to  awaken — then  to  be  alive  unto  any  object,  is  just  to 
have  the  sensibility.  One  of  our  poets  designates  the  child  of  sen- 
sibility to  be  one  who  is  feelingly  alive  to  each  fine  impulse.  It 
is  thus  that  we  are  alive  to  the  call  of  distress — alive  to  the  charm3 
of  a  landscape — alive  to  the  obligations  of  honor — alive  to  the 
charms  of  gratitude  or  friendship.  It  marks  an  attribute  of  the 
personal  character,  because  it  marks  its  degree  of  sensibility  to 
any  such  objects  as  are  presented  to  it ;  and  we  may  easily  con- 
sider what  the  result  will  be  when  Christ  is  the  object,  and  when 
he  to  whom  this  object  is  addressed  is  alive  unto  Christ.  Let  us 
only  conceive  him  to  cast  an  intelligent  look  upon  the  Saviour,  to 
compute  aright  the  mighty  surrender  which  He  had  to  make, 
when  He  had  to  surrender  the  glory  of  heaven,  for  a  death  equiv- 
alent in  its  soreness  to  the  eternity  of  accursed  millions  in  hell — 


326  beveridge's  private  thoughts. 

let  us  think  of  the  tenderness  to  our  world  which  urged  Him  forth 
upon  the  errand  to  seek  and  to  save  it,  and  the  strength  of  that 
unquenchable  love  which  so  bore  him  up  amid  the  pains  and  the 
perils  of  His  great  undertaking — let  us  but  look  on  the  fearful  ago- 
nies, and  listen  to  the  cries,  that,  in  the  hour  and  power  of  dark- 
ness, were  extorted  from  Him,  who  had  the  energy  of  the  God- 
head to  sustain  Him,  and  who,  from  the  garden  to  the  cross,  had 
to  travel  through  a  mystery  of  suffering,  that  sinners  might  go  free 
— let  us  but  connect  this  terror,  and  these  shrinkings,  of  the  incar- 
nate Godhead,  with  the  peace  of  our  own  unburdened  consciences, 
as  we  draw  near  unto  the  mercy-seat,  and  plead  our  full  acquittal 
from  that  vengeance  which  has  already  been  discharged,  from 
that  penalty  which  has  been  already  borne — let  us  bring  together 
in  thought,  even  as  they  stand  together  in  reality,  the  love  of 
Christ  and  our  own  dear-bought  liberty,  and  that  to  Him  all  the 
immunities  of  our  present  grace,  and  all  the  brightest  visions  of 
our  future  immortality  are  owing.  To  be  awake  unto  all  this  with 
the  eye  of  the  understanding,  and  to  be  alive  unto  all  this  with  the 
susceptibilities  of  the  heart,  is  just  to  be  in  that  practical  state 
which  we  now  endeavor  to  set  forth — and  under  which  it  is,  that 
every  true  Christian  gives  up  the  devotedness  of  his  whole  life,  as 
an  offering  of  gratitude  to  Him  who  hath  redeemed  it — and  feel- 
ing that  u  he  is  not  his  own,  but  bought  with  a  price,  lives  no 
longer  to  himself,  but  to  the  Saviour  who  died  for  him  and  who 
rose  again." 

But  it  is  the  unceasing  aim  of  gratitude  to  gratify  its  object; 
and  the  question  comes  to  be,  What  precise  direction  will  this  af- 
fection, now  stirring  and  alive  in  our  hearts  towards  Christ,  im- 
press upon  our  history.  This  will  resolve  itself  into  the  other 
question,  of  how  is  it  that  Christ  is  most  gratified?  what  is  it  that 
He  chiefly  wills  of  us,  or  that  we  can  do,  which  His  desires  are 
most  set  upon  ?  For  the  resolution  of  this  inquiry,  the  Scriptures 
of  truth  give  us  abundance  of  testimonies.  His  will  is  oursancti- 
fication.  The  great  and  ultimate  object  for  which  He  put  forth 
His  hand  upon  us  was  to  make  us  holy.  He  gave  Himself  up  for 
us,  that  we  might  give  ourselves  up  unto  the  guidance  of  that 
word,  and  the  gracious  operation  of  that  Spirit,  whereby  He  puri- 
fies unto  Himself  a  peculiar  people,  and  makes  them  zealous  of 
good  works.  He  has  now  risen  to  the  throne  of  His  appointed 
Mediatorship  ;  and  the  voice  that  He  addressed  to  His  first  disci- 
ples, still  issues  therefrom  to  the  disciples  of  all  ages — "  If  ye  love 
me,  keep  my  commandments  ;"  and,  "  Ye  are  my  friends,  if  ye 
do  whatsoever  I  command  you."  Now  the  commandments  of 
Christ  to  whom  we  are  alive,  are  just  the  individual  command- 
ments of  that  law  to  which  we  are  dead.  The  things  to  which 
we  were  before  driven  by  the  terrors  of  authority,  are  the  very 
things  to  which  we  are  now  drawn  by  the  ties  of  gratitude.  God 
in  His  love  to  righteousness  framed  all  the  virtues  which  compose 


beveridge's  private  thoughts.  327 

it  into  the  articles  of  a  covenant  that  we  had  violated,  but  which 
now  in  Christ  is  settled  and  set  by.  And  God  in  His  still  unabated 
love  to  righteousness,  yet  wills  to  impress  all  the  virtues  of  it  upon 
our  person.  What  before  He  inscribed  on  the  records  of  a  writ- 
ten commandment,  He  would  now  infuse  within  the  repositories 
of  a  believer's  breast— and  those  precepts  which,  under  the  old 
economy,  were  the  ground  of  a  condemnation  that  is  now  taken 
away,  compose,  under  the  new  economy,  a  rule  of  life,  the  obli- 
gation of  which  remaineth  with  us  forever. 

Though  the  law  be  now  taken  away  from  the  eye  of  the  be- 
liever, yet  Christ  stands  in  its  place,  and  these  very  virtues  which 
were  exacted  by  the  one,  are  still  taught  and  exemplified  by  the 
other.*  He  is  the  image  and  representation  of  His  Father,  and 
long  ere  the  moralities  of  absolute  and  everlasting  rectitude  were 
impressed  on  a  tablet  of  jurisprudence,  they  had  their  place  and 
their  living  delineation  in  the  character  of  the  Godhead.  The 
laws  and  threatenings  of  the  tablet  are  now  expunged  and  taken 
away  from  the  sight  of  the  believer,  but  the  character  remains  in 
full  view,  and  now  more  impressively  bodied  forth  than  ever,  be- 
cause now  a  sensible  representation  has  been  given  of  it  in  the 
person  of  Jesus  Christ.  And  to  be  alive  unto  Christ,  is  to  be  alive 
to  the  beauties  of  this  representation.  There  is  more  implied  by 
it  than  gratitude  for  His  love.  It  further  implies  the  admiration 
of  His  loveliness.  With  both  together  we  superadd  to  the  obe- 
dience of  His  precepts,  the  imitation  of  His  example ;  and  it  is 
in  the  busy  prosecution  of  them,  that  every  true  disciple  abounds 
in  the  fruits  of  righteousness,  and  so  lives  unto  God.  The  matter 
of  the  commandment  is  the  same  that  it  ever  was.  The  motive 
only  is  changed.  Then  we  wrought  for  the  favor  of  God  ;  or 
rather,  under  the  despair  of  having  fallen  short,  we  wrought  for 
the  purpose  of  some  possible  escape,  or  to  mitigate  the  vengeance 
that  we  found  to  be  awaiting  us.  Now  we  work  in  the  secure  and 
conscious  possession  of  this  favor,  and  rejoice  in  the  will  and  the 
ways  of  Him  who  rejoices  over  us  to  do  us  good.  It  has  ceased 
to  be  the  service  of  constraint.  It  has  come  to  be  the  service  of 
willingness.  It  is  a  thank-offering,  and  more  than  this,  it  is  our 
now  voluntary  deference  to  that  law  whose  precepts  we  love,  and 
love  the  more,  that  we  have  now  been  placed  beyond  the  reach 
of  its  penalties.  It  is  to  the  latter  only  that  we  are  dead,  for  to 
the  former  we  are  most  thoroughly  alive ;  and,  instead  of  the  ser- 
vilities of  a  forced  obedience,  we  now  render  unto  God  the  spon- 
taneous homage  of  a  freeman,  the  love  and  loyalty  of  a  friend. 

It  is  thus  that  every  true  disciple,  while  dead  unto  the  law,  is 
living  unto  God.  We  can  imagine  the  law  to  be  written  on  a 
tablet,  and  suspended  between  us  and  God ;  Him  pointing  both  to 

*  We  again  refer  the  reader  to  that  Section,  in  the  Second  Part  of  this  work,  which 
treats  of  "  The  Imitation  of  Christ,"  for  an  admirable  illustration  of  our  preceding  ar- 
gument. 


328  beveridge's  private  thoughts. 

its  precepts  and  its  penalties,  and  we  become  conscious  of  our 
utter  deficiency  from  the  one,  and  tremblingly  alive  to  a  dread  of 
the  other.  It  is  well  that  this  be  felt  by  the  sinner,  till  he  is  pre- 
vailed upon  to  flee  from  the  coming  wrath  which  is  thus  denounced 
upon  him  by  the  law,  and  to  flee  for  refuge  to  the  hope  set  before 
him  in  the  Gospel.  Thus  it  is,  in  the  language  of  Paul  to  the  Co- 
lossians,  that  the  hand-writing  of  ordinances  that  was  against  us, 
is  blotted  out,  and  taken  out  of  the  way ;  and  the  believer  is  now 
dead  to  the  terror  of  all  those  penalties,  to  which  aforetime  he 
had  been  most  powerfully  alive.  The  penalties  are  now  taken  out 
of  sight,  but  the  precepts  are  not  taken  out  of  sight.  It  is  true 
that  the  frightful  inscription,  which  stood  as  a  barrier  or  an  inter- 
dict between  him  and  God,  is  now  removed  ;  and  the  consequence 
is,  that  he  is  now  brought  nigh  unto  God,  whose  character  has 
undergone  no  change,  but  who  bears  the  same  unaltered  love  to 
ail  the  moralities  ot  righteousness  as  before.  And  so  those  iden- 
tical virtues  which,  under  the  law,  are  addressed  unto  men  as  the 
precepts  of  an  authoritative  code,  and  have  been  resisted  by  all, 
are  still  addressed  unto  men  as  the  persuasions  of  a  now  recon- 
ciled friend,  and  which  every  believer  in  Jesus  Christ  finds  to  be 
irresistible.  They  stood  then  associated  with  the  frown,  and  the 
compulsion,  and  the  curse,  and  all  the  other  accompaniments  of  a 
ministry  of  condemnation,  to  which  by  this  time  he  is  dead.  They 
stand  now  associated  with  the  kindness,  and  the  affectionate  ur- 
gency, and  the  sympathy  of  manifested  example,  and  the  native 
beauties  of  holiness,  to  all  of  which  he  is  now  most  thoroughly, 
and  most  feelingly  alive.  The  expression  of  a  wish  from  God 
under  the  new  dispensation,  has  a  greater  moral  ascendency 
over  the  believer's  heart,  than  even  a  commandment  had  under 
the  old.  In  a  word,  the  spirit  of  bondage  has  fled  away,  and  in 
its  place  has  come  the  spirit  of  adoption,  in  the  power  of  which 
he  lives  unto  God,  and  abounds  in  all  the  fruits,  and  all  the  per- 
formances of  willing  obedience. 

We  may  now  understand  how  it  is  that  a  change  in  the  judi- 
cial state  brings  about  a  change  in  the  private  character  ;  how  it . 
is,  that  he  who  is  dead  by  the  law,  when  he  is  made  alive  by 
Christ,  becomes  dead  unto  the  law  and  alive  unto  Christ.  When 
we  receive  the  truth  that  is  in  Jesus,  we  are  justified :  for  then 
we  are  justified  by  faith.  And  to  understand  the  way  in  which 
this  truth  makes  us  holy  ;  or,  how  it  is  that  we  are  sanctified  by 
faith,  we  have  only  to  consider  the  believer  as  dead  unto  the  law, 
in  the  sense  wherein  we  have  already  explained  it,  simply  because 
he  now  believes  that  Christ  hath  redeemed  him  from  its  condem- 
nation and  its  curse.  It  is  because  of  the  connection  between  his 
faith  and  his  peace.  He  is  no  longer  alive  to  the  terror  of  those 
threatenings  which  are  by  the  law,  now  that  he  sees  its  threaten- 
ings  to  have  been  all  of  them  discharged.  He  is  no  longer  under 
the  dread  of  its  vengeance,  now  that  the  vengeance  is  absorbed. 


beveridge's  private  thoughts.  329 

He  is  no  longer  afraid  of  a  reckoning  for  the  debts  and  deficien- 
cies that  he  had  incurred,  seeing  that  Christ  has  been  reckoned 
with  as  his  surety — bearing  the  penalties  of  his  disobedience,  and 
giving  him  in  exchange,  the  reward  of  His  own  perfect  righteous- 
ness. It  is  just  because  he  has  been  made  judicially  alive  by  Christ, 
that  he  is  now  dead  to  all  the  alarm  of  that  judicial  condemnation 
under  which  he  aforetime  lay.  The  one  comes  simply  and  imme- 
diately out  of  faith  in  the  other  ;  and  is  the  same  sort  of  moral 
phenomenon  with  that  of  a  man  ceasing  to  have  the  apprehension 
of  a  danger  that  impended  over  him,  on  the  moment  of  being 
made  to  perceive  that  the  danger  has  passed  away. 

But,  the  believer  is  not  only  dead  unto  the  law,  but  alive  unto 
Christ.  This  is  because  of  the  connection  between  his  faith  and 
his  gratitude.  It  is  by  Christ's  work  that  we  are  released  from 
the  pains  of  a  violated  law  ;  but  yet,  it  is  His  will  that  we  do  the 
precepts  of  it ;  and  in  His  person  too  there  is  the  highest  exempli- 
fication of  its  graces  and  virtues.  When  we  believe  in  His  work, 
we  become  alive  to  a  sense  of  cordial  and  willing  obligation  ;  and 
when  we  understand  what  His  will  is,  we  become  alive  to  the 
moralities  of  that  very  law,  to  whose  menaces  we  are  altogether 
dead.  It  is  at  that  transition  by  which  we  are  released  from  its 
penalties,  that  we  become  riveted  to  the  admiration  of  its  perfec- 
tions, and  the  devoted  followers  of  its  truth  and  justice,  and  hu- 
manity and  holiness.  Every  man  who  has  been  made  alive  by 
Christ,  must  be  alive  to  Him  ;  so  as  to  live  no  longer  to  himself, 
but  to  live  unto  Christ  who  died  for  him,  and  who  rose  again. 
There  is  nought  in  the  Gospel  which  exempts  us  from  obedience, 
but  everything  in  it  and  about  it  which  excites  to  obedience — to 
obedience  in  a  better  spirit  than  we  could  possibly  have  under  the 
law — to  obedience,  if  we  may  so  speak,  in  a  higher  style  of  it, — 
not  the  obedience  that  is  extorted  by  terror  or  by  power,  but  the 
obedience  to  which  we  are  urged  by  taste  and  by  gratitude.  And 
amid  all  the  darkness  of  human  controversy  and  explanation,  one 
thing  is  clear — even  the  apostolical  test  of  our  truly  knowing 
Christ,  that  we  keep  his  commandments. 

But,  while  we  insist  on  this  as  the  true  test  of  discipleship,  we 
are  no  less  strenuous  in  insisting  on  a  sound  faith,  convinced  as 
we  are  of  the  intimate  connection  which  subsists  between  a  sound 
faith  and  a  sound  practice.  Without  the  former  we  have  the 
highest  authority  for  stating,  that  it  is  impossible  to  please  God  ; 
though  the  latter  we  hold  to  be  no  less  necessary  as  the  indis- 
pensable preparation  for  heaven,  since  without  holiness  no  man 
can  see  God;  and  therefore  would  we  labor  to  make  every  in- 
quirer acquainted  with  the  foundation  of  a  Christian's  hope,  as 
well  as  the  rule  of  a  Christian's  practice.  And,  for  this  purpose, 
instead  of  offering  any  further  exposition  of  our  own  on  these  two 
most  important  topics,  we  would  recommend  to  his  perusal  the 
two  following  Treatises  of  Bishop  Beveridge,  "  Thoughts  on  Re- 

42 


330  beveridge's  private  thoughts. 

ligion,"  and  "  On  a  Christian  Life,"  where  he  will  find  an  admira- 
ble conjunction  of  the  great  doctrines  of  Christianity,  with  those 
graces  and  accomplishments  of  the  Christian  character,  which 
form  the  necessary  fruits  and  consequences  of  a  genuine  faith  in 
these  doctrines ;  and  from  which  are  derived  the  only  motives  of 
sufficient  power  and  potency,  for  establishing  the  authority  of 
Christian  morality  in  the  heart,  and  for  securing  obedience  to  it 
in  the  life. 

In  his  first  Treatise  this  learned  and  pious  prelate  gives  an  enu- 
meration of  the  articles  of  his  faith,  with  a  clearness  and  precision 
which  indicate  that  he  had  a  distinct  and  scriptural  view  of  the 
dispensation  of  grace,  in  all  its  relations  and  dependencies ;  while 
the  "  Resolutions"  formed  thereupon,  deduced  as  they  are  from 
the  articles  of  his  faith,  and  deriving  from  them  their  whole  force 
and  urgency  of  motive,  are  admirably  fitted  for  regulating  the 
affections  and  conduct  of  the  aspiring  candidate  for  heaven.  And 
we  apprehend,  that  it  is  from  the  want  of  such  distinct  and  well- 
defined  rules  for  the  government  of  their  thoughts,  and  actions,  and 
general  intercourse  in  the  world,  which  this  pious  bishop  deemed 
so  necessary  for  the  regulation  of  his  own  heart  and  life,  that 
many  professing  Christians,  not  otherwise  defective  in  a  sound  or- 
thodoxy, do  nevertheless  exhibit  much  that  is  defective  and  incon- 
sistent in  their  Christian  profession.  In  this  so  important  a  branch 
of  Christian  duty,  and  so  conducive  to  the  consistency  and  com- 
fort of  the  Christian  life,  the  example  of  this  excellent  prelate  is 
highly  worthy  of  imitation  ;  and  when  entered  into,  in  an  humble 
dependence  on  the  strength  and  sufficiency  of  Him  in  whose  grace 
alone  he  can  be  strong,  the  Christian  disciple  will  find  it  conducive 
to  his  personal  sanctification  and  growth  in  the  divine  life. 

The  second  Treatise  contains  a  no  less  excellent  and  valuable 
exposition  of  several  important  topics,  which  are  intimately  con- 
nected with  the  formation  and  successful  prosecution  of  the  Chris- 
tian life.  His  observations  on  the  Christian  education  of  children, 
are  entitled  to  the  serious  regard  of  those  parents  who  are  in 
earnest  to  bring  up  their  children  in  the  nurture  and  admonition 
of  the  Lord ;  and  in  the  subsequent  topics,  which  form  the  con- 
cluding portion  of  his  work,  there  is  a  close  and  forcible  applica- 
tion of  truth  to  the  conscience,  addressed  with  all  the  power  and 
solemn  earnestness  of  a  man,  who  felt  as  well  as  understood  the 
truths  he  was  expounding.  Bishop  Beveridge  was  an  eminent 
and  successful  minister  of  the  Gospel  of  Christ,  and  was  a  distin- 
guished ornament  of  that  church  of  which  he  was  a  dignitary  ; 
and  we  cannot  give  a  better  portraiture  of  this  truly  good  and 
pious  man,  both  as  a  private  Christian  and  as  a  public  functionary, 
than  by  transcribing  the  following  character  of  him,  as  drawn  by 
his  biographer. 

"  This  great  and  good  bishop  had  very  early  addicted  himself 
to   piety  and  a  religious   course  of  life,  of  which  his   Private 


beveridge's  private  thoughts.  331 

Thoughts  upon  Religion  will  be  a  lasting  evidence.  They  were 
written  in  his  younger  years  ;  and  he  must  a  considerable  time 
before  this,  have  devoted  himself  to  such  practices,  otherwise  he 
could  never  have  drawn  up  so  judicious  and  sound  a.  declaration 
of  his  faith,  nor  have  formed  such  excellent  resolutions  so  agree- 
able to  the  Christian  life  in  all  its  parts.  These  things  show  him 
to  be  acquainted  with  the  life  and  power  of  religion  long  before, 
and  that  even  from  a  child  he  knew  the  Holy  Scriptures.  And  as 
his  piety  was  early,  so  it  was  very  eminent  and  conspicuous,  in 
all  the  parts  and  stations  of  his  life.  As  he  had  formed  such  good 
resolutions,  he  made  suitable  improvements  upon  them  ;  and  they, 
at  length,  grew  up  into  such  settled  habits,  that  all  his  actions  sa- 
vored of  nothing  but  piety  and  religion.  His  holy  example  was 
a  very  great  ornament  to  our  church  ;  and  he  honored  his  profes- 
sion and  function  by  zealously  discharging  all  the  duties  thereof. 
How  remarkable  was  his  piety  towards  God  !  What  an  awful 
sense  of  the  divine  Majesty  did  he  always  express  !  How  did  he 
delight  in  His  worship  and  service,  and  frequent  His  house  of 
prayer  !  How  great  was  his  charity  to  men  ;  how  earnestly  was 
he  concerned  for  their  welfare,  as  his  pathetic  addresses  to  them 
in  his  discourses  plainly  discover  !  How  did  the  Christian  spirit 
run  through  all  his  actions,  and  what  a  wonderful  pattern  was  he 
of  primitive  purity,  holiness,  and  devotion  !  As  he  was  remark- 
able for  his  great  piety  and  zeal  for  religion,  so  he  was  highly  to 
be  esteemed  for  his  learning,  which  he  wholly  applied  to  promote 
the  interest  of  his  great  Master.  He  was  one  of  extensive  and 
almost  universal  reading  ;  he  was  well  skilled  in  the  oriental  lan- 
guages, and  the  Jewish  learning,  as  may  appear  from  many  of  his 
sermons ;  and  indeed  he  was  furnished  to  a  very  eminent  degree 
with  all  useful  knowledge.  He  was  very  much  to  be  admired  for 
his  readiness  in  the  Scriptures  :  he  had  made  it  his  business  to 
acquaint  himself  thoroughly  with  those  sacred  oracles,  whereby 
he  was  furnished  unto  all  good  works :  he  was  able  to  produce 
suitable  passages  from  them  on  all  occasions,  and  was  very  happy 
in  explaining  them  to  others.  Thus  he  improved  his  time  and  his 
abilities  in  serving  God,  and  doing  good,  till  he  arrived  at  a  good 
old  age,  when  it  pleased  his  great  Master  to  give  him  rest  from 
his  labors,  and  to  assign  him  a  place  in  those  mansions  of  bliss, 
where  he  had  always  laid  up  his  treasure,  and  to  which  his  heart 
had  been  all  along  devoted  through  the  whole  course  of  his  life 
and  actions.  He  was  so  highly  esteemed  among  all  learned  and 
good  men,  that  when  he  was  dying,  one  of  the  chief  of  his  order 
deservedly  said  of  him,  '  There  goes  one  of  the  greatest,  and  one 
of  the  best  men,  that  ever  England  bred.'  " 


INTRODUCTORY  ESSAY 

TO 

THE    REIGN    OF    GRACE, 

FROM    ITS    RISE    TO    ITS    CONSUMMATION. 

BY  ABRAHAM  BOOTH. 


There  is  no  one  term  which  is  more  frequently  employed  in 
the  Bible,  to  denote  our  relationship  to  God,  than  the  term  cove- 
nant. But  though  the  import  of  this  term  is  sufficiently  under- 
stood when  it  relates  to  the  intercourse  between  man  and  man, 
we  fear  it  is  very  indistinctly  apprehended  when  it  expresses  our 
relation  to  God.  A  covenant  is  an  agreement  between  at  least 
two  parties,  and  it  is  generally  at  first  proposed  by  one  of  them, 
and  then  acceded  to  by  the  other.  If  the  former  be  very  distinct, 
and  absolute,  and  peremptory  in  the  terms  that  he  lays  down,  the 
latter,  in  the  act  of  giving  his  acquiescence,  feels  that  he  is  coming 
under  very  distinct  and  certain  obligations.  The  engagement  is 
just  felt  to  be  as  formal  upon  the  one  side,  as  it  is  upon  the  other 
— and  when  it  is  a  contract  between  man  and  man,  there  is  a 
strict  and  definite  understanding,  both  with  him  who  originated 
the  articles,  and  him  who  complies  with  them. 

It  is  thus,  in  any  social  or  earthly  covenant.  We  there  see  how 
anxiously  the  utmost  explicitness  is  secured,  by  one  clause  and 
one  stipulation  after  another,  that  each  may  know  the  distinct 
place  he  has  to  occupy,  and  the  distinct  part  he  has  to  perform. 
There  is  a  certain  relative  position  in  which  the  one  party  stands 
to  the  other,  so  that  when  the  one  enters  upon  his  place  in  the 
covenant,  and  then  acts  the  part  that  is  assigned  to  him,  the  other 
conforms  to  the  covenant  by  entering  upon  his  place,  and  acting 
the  part  that  is  assigned  to  him.  Were  there  a  loose  or  obscure 
understanding  on  the  one  side,  then,  on  the  other  side,  there  might 
be  freedom  for  a  loose  and  obscure  understanding  also.  But  a 
well-framed  covenant  does  away  all  looseness,  and  admits  of 
nothing  but  what  is  strict  and  determinate  ;  so  that  all  who  are 
concerned  may  have  a  clear  and  well-defined  path  to  walk  in. 
The  formal  and  peremptory  attitude  of  one  party  in  the  covenant, 


booth's  reign  op  grace.  333 

calls  for  a  corresponding  attitude  from  the  other,  and  summons 
him  to  an  observation  just  as  pointed  and  as  rigorous  as  the  terms 
that  are  imposed.  And  the  line  of  performance  for  each  is  so 
marked  out,  that  each  is  fully  aware  when  he  keeps  by  it,  and  as 
fully  aware  when  he  steps  aside  into  any  track  of  deviation. 

Now,  if  such  be  the  real  force  and  import  of  a  covenant,  what 
a  lesson  does  it  hold  forth,  when  this  is  the  very  term  that  the 
Bible  so  often  employs  in  expressing  that  transaction  by  which  a 
man  enters  into  a  right  relationship  with  God.  What  a  power  of 
rebuke  is  conveyed  by  this  single  term,  on  the  loose,  and  indefinite, 
and  floating  imaginations  of  almost  every  man,  as  to  the  right 
federal  position  which  he  himself  should  occupy,  and  as  to  the 
question,  whether  he  has  actually  and  personally  entered  upon  it. 
What  a  fell  denunciation  does  this  one  vocable  carry  with  it,  not 
merely  on  the  unsettledness  of  his  accounts  with  God,  but  on  the 
unsettledness  even  of  his  conceptions,  as  to  the  footing  upon  which, 
if  we  may  use  the  expression,  the  account  is  opened  with  Him. 
How  vague  the  apprehensions  of  the  vast  majority  are,  as  to  the 
terms  in  which  an  agreement  is  struck  with  God,  and  as  to  the 
way  and  method  in  which  that  agreement  is  kept  up  and  main- 
tained with  Him.  And  this  charge  extends  a  great  deal  farther 
than  to  those  who  profess  no  care  and  no  concern  about  the  mat- 
ter. How  many  may  be  specified  of  those  who  are  versant  in 
the  whole  orthodoxy  of  the  new  covenant,  and  yet  with  whom 
the  question  is  altogether  undetermined,  whether  it  be  a  covenant 
that  they  have  individually  laid  hold  of.  They  love  the  evangel- 
ical language,  and  they  like  to  breathe  in  the  atmosphere  of  an 
evangelical  society,  and  they  feel  that  the  decided  preference  of 
their  taste  is  towards  the  tone  and  habit  of  evangelical  professor- 
ship, and  yet,  with  all  this,  they  have  not  set  themselves  to  the 
question,  4<  What  shall  I  do  to  be  saved  ?"  with  that  pointedness, 
and  formality,  and  mature  deliberation  upon  articles,  which  the 
very  term  of  a  covenant  appears  to  demand  of  them.  They 
breathe,  perhaps,  many  good  desires,  and  are  in  the  way  of  many 
good  impulses,  and  give  their  most  cordial  assent  to  the  truth  and 
importance  of  all  the  scriptural  doctrine  that  is  proposed  to  them; 
nay,  can  speak  soundly  and  well  about  the  new  covenant,  and  yet 
have  never  distinctly,  and  solemnly,  and  individually,  charged  the 
obligation  of  its  articles  upon  themselves — living  very  much  adrift 
and  at  random  after  all — with  no  distinct  place  of  relationship  to 
God,  personally  and  actually  in  occupation — with  no  urgent  or 
practical  sense  of  any  clearly  articled  engagement  between  Him 
and  them,  viewed  in  the  light  of  two  parties  linked  together  by 
the  tie  of  mutual  promises,  and  respectively  bound  to  certain  mu- 
tual performances,  and  habitually  unconscious,  all  the  day  long, 
of  having  taken  up  any  position  in  which  they  have  certain  ap- 
propriate duties  to  discharge,  and  every  occupier  of  which  has  the 


334 


BOOTH  S    REIGN    OF    GRACE. 


right  to  look  from  the  other  party  in  the  contract  for  the  fulfilment 
of  certain  stipulations. 

Meanwhile  there  is  no  want  either  of  clearness  or  of  precision 
with  God.  All  is  pointed  and  peremptory  in  the  manifesto  that 
He  has  given  of  Himself  to  the  world.  He  wills  us  to  enter  into 
covenant  with  him,  but  lays  down  the  terms  of  it  in  a  way  so  dis- 
tinct and  so  authoritative,  as  to  preclude  and  lay  an  interdict  upon 
all  others.  In  framing  the  articles  of  this  covenant,  all  the  high 
and  unchanging  principles  of  heaven's  jurisprudence  were  con- 
cerned— and  we  behold  upon  the  face  of  it,  the  sure  impress  of 
that  moral  character  which  obtains  in  the  sanctuary  above.  It  is 
a  document  which  announces  the  truth,  and  the  justice,  and  the 
uncompromising  dignity  of  the  government  by  which  it  has  been 
issued  ;  and  there  is  indeed  a  striking  contrast  between  the  disre- 
gard in  which  it  is  held  by  men  on  earth,  and  the  intense  earnest- 
ness of  that  gaze  which  it  drew  from  the  choirs  and  the  companies 
of  the  celestial.  "  Which  things  the  angels  desire  to  look  into." 
So  that  there  is  no  lightness,  and  no  looseness,  in  the  terms  of  that 
proposal  which  came  down  to  us  from  heaven.  The  question,  of 
how  an  alliance  between  God  and  sinners  could  be  struck,  and 
how  a  right  ceremonial  of  approach  and  meeting  between  the 
parties  could  be  adjusted,  and  what  sort  of  compact  ought  to  be 
devised,  so  as  to  satisfy  the  claims,  and  suit  itself  to  the  character 
of  each — these  are  questions  which,  however  slighted  in  a  world, 
where  all  that  is  above,  is  looked  to  through  the  dull  medium  of 
its  gross  and  incumbent  carnality — they  are  questions  which  have 
exercised  the  purest  and  mightiest  intelligences  in  nature,  and 
which  belong  to  the  very  essence  of  the  rectitude  that  is  everlast- 
ing. They  are  questions,  for  the  right  determination  of  which, 
we  see  all  heaven,  as  it  were,  in  a  busy  movement  of  concern — 
and  the  public  mind  of  God's  unfallen  universe,  at  least,  directed 
in  solemn  contemplation  towards  them,  and  an  overture  made  out 
with  all  the  form  and  circumstance  of  a  covenant  that  was  to  be 
unalterable  ;  and  this  delivered  into  the  hands  of  a  Mediator,  who, 
Both  by  the  dignity  of  His  person,  and  the  power  of  His  high, 
though  mysterious  achievements,  has  added  to  the  weight  and 
sacredness  of  the  whole  transaction  ; — and  thus  has  it  been  ush- 
ered in  with  a  style  of  authority  to  the  notice  of  our  species,  who 
are  called  to  listen,  that  they  may  hear  of  the  only  way  in  which 
God  will  be  approached,  and  of  the  only  terms  in  which  He  will 
treat  with  them.  And  is  not  this  a  call  upon  us  to  look  more 
strictly  into  the  matter  of  our  relationship  with  God,  and  a  re- 
proach to  us  for  the  vague  indifference  of  our  minds  upon  the 
subject,  and  an  urgent  application  to  our  conscience,  whether  we 
have  taken  up  our  part  in  the  account,  and  whether  there  has 
been  such  an  event  in  our  history,  as  a  great  federal  transaction 
between  us  and  the  Lawgiver  in  heaven ;  whether  we  have 
struck  with  Him,  or  closed  with  Him,  upon  His  own  terms ; 


booth's  reign  of  grace.  335 

whether  the  fulfilment  of  our  part  of  the  covenant  in  time,  is  our 
habitual  business,  and  the  fulfilment  of  His  part  of  it,  both  in  time 
and  in  eternity,  is  our  habitual  expectation — in  a  word,  whether 
we  are  living  as  we  list,  or  living  by  the  terms  of  a  treaty  actually 
concluded  and  entered  upon  between  us  and  God.  These  are 
questions  that  need  to  be  addressed,  not  merely  to  those  on  whom 
the  terms  and  the  obligations  of  religion  have  no  hold,  but  to  those 
who  are  longing  after  it,  though  in  hitherto  fruitless  aspirations ; 
to  those  who,  yet  wrapt  in  a  kind  of  general  mistiness,  have  never 
seen  the  certainty  of  that  track  which  they  have  to  pursue,  and 
never  felt  the  solidity  of  that  ground  which  they  have  to  walk 
upon — who  sigh,  and  expatiate,  and  spend  their  earnestness  among 
fruitless  generalities — who  still  feel  themselves  bewildered  in  the 
haze  of  undefined  speculation — and  have  neither  the  confident 
look,  nor  yet  the  confirmed  footstep  of  him  who  knows  his  calling, 
and  who  has  actually  taken  hold  of  a  sure  and  a  well-ordered 
covenant. 

We  apprehend  that  there  is  an  actual,  and  a  highly  interesting 
class,  who  exemplify  the  very  condition  of  mind  which  we  now 
attempt  to  characterize.  The  truth  is,  it  marks  a  sort  of  transitive 
state  in  the  progress  from  nature  to  grace,  which  the  great  gener- 
ality of  inquirers  have  to  undergo.  There  is  such  a  thing  as  a 
longing  desirousness  to  be  right,  but  without  any  clear  or  steady 
perception  of  the  avenue  that  leads  to  it — an  honest,  but  yet  an 
undirected  inclination  of  the  mind  towards  God — a  heart  under 
the  visitation  of  strong  concern,  that  its  possessor  should  be  what 
he  ought,  and  do  what  he  ought,  but  still  laboring  in  the  midst  of 
many  fears  and  many  fluctuations,  and  that  just  because  he  looks 
with  a  still  clouded  eye,  on  the  field  of  spiritual  contemplation  that 
lies  before  him.  This  is  a  state,  which  reminds  us  somewhat  of 
the  exercise  of  the  Psalmist,  when  he  says,  "My  soul  breaketh  for 
the  longing  that  it  hath  unto  thy  judgments  at  all  times,"  and  that, 
shortly  after  he  had  said,  in  the  perplexity  of  his  felt  darkness, 
"  Open  thou  mine  eyes,  that  I  may  behold  wondrous  things  out  of 
thy  law."  Now  we  would  pronounce  of  him  who  is  in  this  state, 
that  his  face  is  towards  Zion.  He  is  seeking  the  Lord,  if  haply  he 
may  feel  after  Him  and  find  Him  ;  and  laboring  to  enter  upon  a 
rest  which  he  hath  not  yet  attained  to — familiar  with  all  the  sounds 
and  all  the  doctrines  of  orthodoxy,  but  without  being  conscious,  as 
yet,  of  having  taken  up  that  position  which  orthodoxy  would  assign 
individually  to  him — rather  trying  to  put  himself  into  the  attitude 
of  readiness  for  the  Lord,  than  actually  waiting  in  that  attitude  for 
the  coming  of  the  Lord — thoroughly  aware  that  there  is  a  posture 
of  preparation,  but  utterly  in  the  dark,  whether  it  is  a  posture  that 
he  has  personally  assumed — and  in  the  face  of  a  covenant  offered 
from  heaven  for  his  acceptance,  with  all  its  articles  penned  under 
the  dictates  of  clear  and  unerring  wisdom,  still  "  running  as  uncer- 
tainly, still  fighting  even  as  one  that  beateth  the  air." 


336 


BOOTH  3    REIGN    OF    GRACE. 


This  is  a  matter  which  ought  not  to  be  left  in  a  state  of  unset- 
tledness.  If  ever  there  was  a  business  which  it  were  desirable 
should  be  brought  to  a  point,  it  is  surely  that  which  involves  in  it 
the  state  of  a  creature  towards  God.  Of  all  the  questions  that  lie 
within  the  compass  of  human  speculation,  this  ought  not  to  be 
abandoned  to  the  caprices  of  a  loose  and  floating  imagination. 
"  What  shall  I  do  to  be  saved  ?"  and  "  wherewithal  shall  I  come 
before  God  ?"  these  are  interrogatories  precise  in  the  object  of 
them,  nor  should  we  rest  satisfied  with  anything  short  of  a  precise 
and  clearly  intelligible  solution.  It  is  woful  to  think  of  the  frivol- 
ity wherewith  the  mind  can  shift  itself  away  from  the  urgency  of 
these  questions,  and  by  an  act  of  indefinite  postponement,  can  com- 
mit them  to  a  futurity  that,  in  all  likelihood,  will  ever  be  receding 
till  that  hour  which  separates  its  misspent  time  from  its  unprovided 
eternity.  Were  there  anything  slack  or  indeterminate  in  the  ar- 
ticles of  God's  message  to  the  world,  this  might  well  apologize  for 
a  corresponding  remissness  on  the  part  of  man.  But  when  this 
message  has  come  in  pointed  application  to  us,  and  armed  with  all 
the  rigor  and  imperative  force  of  an  ultimatum,  and  has  taken  the 
shape  of  a  covenant,  in  which  God  offers  His  terms,  and  both  de- 
mands and  entreats  our  compliance  with  them — there  is  no  room 
left  for  parrying  or  evasion  ;  nor  do  we  meet  aright  this  advanc- 
ing movement  on  the  part  of  God,  but  by  our  distinct  response  to 
His  distinct  and  peremptory  overtures. 

It  were  well,  if,  under  the  impulse  of  such  considerations,  we 
were  to  take  up  the  language  of  the  Prophet,  and  say,  "  Come 
then,  and  let  us  join  ourselves  to  the  Lord."  There  is  one  way 
of  setting  forth  upon  this  movement,  to  which  nature  feels  a  very 
strong  and  general  inclination.  Nothing  can  be  more  natural  than 
the  conclusion — that  hitherto  we  have  done  wrong,  and  are  there- 
fore out  of  terms  and  out  of  friendship  with  God.  Let  us  hence- 
forth do  right,  and  thus  we  shall  recover  the  ground  from  which 
our  own  sins  have  disposted  us.  There  is  a  universal  propensity 
among  men  to  feel  in  this  manner.  It  is  by  our  own  doings  that 
we  have  forfeited  our  claim  upon  God  ;  and  it  is  by  our  own 
doings  that  the  claim  is  to  be  re-established.  The  truth  is,  that 
though  the  old  covenant  of — "  Do  this  and  live,"  is  now  an  utter 
wreck,  in  virtue  of  man's  disobedience,  yet  the  feelings  and  ten- 
dencies of  man's  unrenewed  nature  still  retain,  as  it  were,  the 
very  mould  and  impress  of  such  a  covenant ;  and  we  are  not 
aware  of  a  more  prevailing  imagination,  or  of  one  that  lurks  more 
insidiously,  and  operates  more  powerfully  in  the  human  bosom, 
than  that  acceptance  with  God  can  somehow  be  carried  by  a 
certain  character  of  meritoriousness,  in  the  desire  of  our  own 
hearts,  and  in  the  doing  of  our  own  hands.  And  this,  our  first 
attempt,  is  so  to  manage  as  that  heaven  shall  be  rightfully  ours,  in 
virtue  of  our  rendered  services,  and  that  it  shall  come  to  us  on 
the  footing  of  a  legal  payment,  by  which  value  is  given  for  the 


booth's  reign  op  grace.  337 

value  that  has  been  received.  The  secret,  bat  certain  aim,  in  the 
first  instance,  of  every  man  who  goes  out  in  quest  of  immortality, 
is  so  to  qualify  himself,  as  that  he  may  demand  it  as  a  right  at  the 
bar  of  justice,  instead  of  suing  for  it  as  a  boon  at  the  bar  of  mercy. 
And  this  is  what  the  Bible  calls  "  going  about  to  establish  a  right- 
eousness of  our  own" — founding  a  plea  on  which  we  may  challenge 
heaven  as  our  well-earned  remuneration,  or  as  the  fulfilment  of  a 
bargain  between  two  parties — standing  on  the  even  ground  of 
"work  and  win,"  upon  the  one  side,  and  "accept  of  that  work, 
and  bestow  an  adequate  reward  for  it,"  upon  the  other.  The 
man  who  works  with  this  for  his  object,  is  said  to  work  in  the 
spirit  of  legality  ;  and  this  we  hold  to  be  the  aspiring  and  univer- 
sal spirit  of  nature,  in  its  first  attempts  to  reunite  with  the  God 
from  whom  sin  has  so  widely  dissevered  it. 

This  fond  and  clinging  tendency  on  the  part  of  man,  to  get  into 
terms  with  God  on  the  footing  of  the  old  covenant,  after  that  cov- 
enant has  been  broken  into  shreds,  or,  if  he  persist  in  his  tenden- 
cy, will  gather  itself  up  against  him  into  a  body  of  overwhelming 
condemnation,  has  come  down  to  us  from  our  first  parents,  and  is 
deeply  incorporated  with  that  nature  which  they  have  transmitted 
over  the  whole  family  of  their  descendants.  It  is  not  peculiar  to 
Jews,  who  wanted  to  make  a  righteousness  out  of  their  Mosaic 
law.  It  extends  to  the  men  of  all  countries,  and  of  all  colors,  who. 
out  of  the  law  of  conscience,  or  the  law  of  conventional  propri- 
ety in  their  neighborhood,  or  the  law  to  which  tradition,  and  rev- 
elation, and  custom,  have  made  their  respective  contributions,  still 
want  to  rear  a  righteousness  of  their  own,  which  God,  on  the 
principles  of  justice,  shall  be  bound  to  accept,  and,  on  the  same 
principles,  shall  be  bound  to  reward.  This  spirit  of  legality, 
whatever  may  be  its  disguises,  has  a  prompting  and  a  presiding 
influence  at  the  outset  of  all  our  returning  movements  unto  God. 
And  it  is  a  spirit  to  which  He  has  most  broadly  adverted  in  the 
new  covenant,  that  he  has  framed  for  the  purpose  of  bringing 
sinners  again  into  fellowship  with  Himself,  and  there  He  peremp- 
torily refuses  to  give  it  any  countenance.  He  utterly  refuses  to 
enter  into  any  degrading  compromise  with  human  sinfulness — and, 
setting  up  the  authority  of  His  law,  as  a  thing  that  was  unchange- 
able and  irreducible,  He  holds  that,  by  one  act  of  disobedience, 
the  foundation  of  merit,  on  the  part  of  the  creature,  is  utterly  cut 
away.  It  is  said  of  God,  that  He  cannot  lie,  and  therefore  may 
it  be  said  of  Him,  that  He  cannot  accept  the  unfinished  conform- 
ities of  man  to  a  rule  that  is  inflexible  ;  He  cannot  accept  of  these 
as  the  claims  to  which  are  to  be  adjudged  the  high  rewards  of 
heaven's  jurisprudence.  We  are  outcasts  from  the  old  covenant, 
if,  in  a  single  instance,  we  have  made  free  with  the  authority  of 
God,  or  trampled  on  any  of  His  requirements.  And  on  the  face 
of  the  new  covenant,  there  is  nothing  that  stands  out  more  strongly, 
than  the  decisive  check  which  it  has  laid  on  the  spirit  of  legality, 

43 


BOOTH  S    REIGN    OF    GRACE. 

than  the  wide  and  welcome  way  in  which  it  throws  open  the  gate 
of  heaven  to  all,  if  willing  to  enter  there  on  the  footing  of  a  divine 
grant,  and  the  firm  interdict  which,  at  the  same  time,  it  throws 
across  the  path  of  all  who  offer  to  approach  on  the  footing  of 
their  own  merits.  There  is  not  one  more  obvious  or  prominent 
characteristic  of  the  Gospel,  than  just  the  way  in  which  it  meets 
and  encounters  the  spirit  of  legality  at  the  very  outset,  and  must 
either  conquer  it  into  entire  submission,  or  decline  to  treat  with 
it  altogether.  It  holds  forth  an  alternative,  on  the  one  side  of 
which  the  access  between  God  and  man  is  hopelessly  and  ever- 
lastingly barred,  and  on  the  other  side  of  which  there  is  a  patent 
way  of  approach,  even  to  the  place  "where  His  honor  dwelleth," 
and  where  His  favor  is  as  free  as  the  elements  of  air  and  light,  to 
all  who  will.  All  who  propose  to  join  themselves  to  the  Lord  in 
that  covenant,  to  which  He  has  actually  put  His  consenting  hand, 
ought  to  be  aware  of  this — nor  are  they  prepared  for  such  a 
movement,  till  brought  to  acquiesce  in  the  saying,  "  that  not  by 
works  of  righteousness  which  we  have  done,  but  according  to 
His  mercy  He  hath  saved  us." 

But  it  is  altogether  worthy  of  remark,  that  the  mercy  by  which 
we  are  saved,  is  mercy  in  conjunction  with  righteousness.  On 
the  work  of  our  redemption,  the  sacredness  of  the  Godhead 
stands  as  prominently  out  as  does  the  tenderness  of  the  Godhead. 
God  did  not  so  love  the  world,  as,  under  the  simple  instigation  of 
a  compassionate  feeling  towards  it,  to  send  a  message  of  forgive- 
ness, and  thus  make  known  to  sinners  the  mere  clemency  of  His 
nature.  He  so  loved  the  world,  as  to  send  His  only  begotten  Son 
into  it,  who  took  upon  Him  the  punishment  of  our  guilt,  and  the 
whole  burden  of  that  obedience  which  we  should  have  rendered  ; 
and  thus  made  known  the  righteousness  of  His  nature,  as  well  as 
its  clemency,  in  that  He  thereby  approved  Himself  just,  while 
the  Justifier  of  those  who  believe  in  Jesus.  This  is  the  leading 
characteristic  of  the  Gospel  dispensation.  It  is  a  dispensation  of 
mercy,  but  of  mercy  in  alliance  with  truth  ;  a  mercy  illustrative 
of  all  those  high  and  unchangeable  perfections  which  belong  to 
the  great  moral  Sovereign  of  the  universe.  He  makes  us  all 
welcome  to  pardon,  but  it  is  to  pardon  sealed  by  the  blood  of  a 
divine  atonement.  He  beckons  the  guiltiest  of  men  to  draw  nigh, 
but  it  is  only  by  the  path  of  an  appointed  and  consecrated  medi- 
atorship.  He  holds  out  the  remission  of  sins  to  one  and  to  every; 
yet  it  is  not  a  simple  sentence  of  remission  that  He  passes  upon 
any,  but  a  sentence  of  justification  ;  or,  in  other  words,  a  sentence 
given  in  consideration  of  a  righteousness.  To  every  sinner  there 
is  declared  the  offer  of  his  remission,  that  in  laying  hold  of  it,  he 
may  do  homage  to  the  gentle  and  compassionate  attributes  of  the 
Deity.  But  to  every  sirmer  there  is  declared  at  the  same  time, 
the  righteousness  on  which  this  deed  of  remission  is  founded,  that 
he  may  also  do  homage  to  the  august  and  holy  attributes  of  the 


BOOTH  S    REIGN    OF    GRACE.  339 

Deity.  He  who  confides  in  the  general  mercy  of  God,  would 
break  up  this  association,  which  God  will  never  consent  to  dissolve. 
His  hatred  of  sin,  and  the  high  moral  regard  He  bears  to  the 
worth  and  the  rectitude  of  virtue,  are  stamped  on  every  feature 
of  that  economy  which  He  has  instituted  for  the  acceptance  and 
recovery  of  the  sinful.  It  is  thus  that  the  priesthood  of  Christ 
stands  forward  to  observation,  in  characters  of  sanctity,  as  bright 
and  legible  as  it  does  in  the  characters  of  benignity.  And  there- 
fore it  is  not  a  proffer  of  bare  mercy,  but  of  propitiated  mercy, 
that  is  held  out  for  our  acceptance.  God  does  not  set  forth  Him- 
self with  a  general  declaration  of  pardon  to  the  sins  of  mankind ; 
but  He  sets  forth  His  Son  a  propitiation  for  the  sins  of  mankind. 
And  what  we  have  to  look  to,  is  not  the  mercy  of  God  unguarded 
and  unqualified ;  but  the  mercy  of  God  in  Christ,  and  through 
Christ,  reconciling  the  world. 

There  is  no  question  that  appears  to  have  been  more  solemnly 
entertained,  and  more  deliberately  weighed  in  the  counsels  of  the 
upper  sanctuary,  than  how  to  determine  the  footing  on  which  the 
guilty  shall  be  taken  back  again,  into  acceptance  with  the  God 
whom  they  had  offended.  And  to  provide  a  solid  footing,  Christ 
had  both  to  serve  and  to  suffer  in  our  stead.  Lest  our  sins  should 
pass  unreckoned,  and  so  escape  the  punishment  that  was  due  to 
them,  they  were  reckoned  unto  Christ ;  and  lest  the  righteousness 
that  He  as  Mediator  has  brought  in,  should  pass  unreckoned,  and 
so  miss  of  a  reward,  it  is  reckoned  unto  us.  And  thus,  in  the 
highest  exhibition  of  generosity  that  ever  was  given  to  the  world, 
we  behold,  at  the  same  time,  all  the  precision  of  a  justice  that 
could  not  deviate,  and  all  the  unchangeableness  of  a  truth  that 
could  not  fail.  Had  we  fulfilled  the  law  of  God,  heaven  would 
have  been  ours,  and  it  would  have  been  given  to  us  because  of  our 
righteousness.  We  have  broken  that  law,  and  yet  heaven  may  be 
ours,  not  because  of  our  righteousness,  but  still  because  of  a  right- 
eousness ;  and  the  honor  of  God  is  deeply  involved  in  the  ques- 
tion, What  and  whose  righteousness  this  is  ?  It  is  not  the  right- 
eousness of  man,  but  the  righteousness  of  Christ  reckoned  unto 
man.  The  whole  distinction  between  a  covenant  that  is  now  ex- 
ploded, and  the  covenant  that  is  now  in  force,  hinges  upon  this 
alternative.  If  we  make  a  confidence  of  the  former  plea,  we  shall 
perish  ;  and  if  of  the  latter,  we  shall  have  life  everlasting. 

God  is  merciful ;  and  in  virtue  of  this,  it  was  His  longing  de- 
sire to  frame  a  deed  of  reconciliation,  and  to  convey  it  to  our 
world.  But  God  is  also  righteous  ;  and  in  virtue  of  this,  the  very 
peculiar  economy  of  a  mediatorship,  and  an  incarnation,  and  a  sac- 
rifice, had  to  be  instituted,  through  which  this  deed  of  mercy  was 
to  pass ;  and  in  its  way,  it  became  tinged  as  it  were,  with  the  full 
expression  of  the  entire  and  unbroken  character  of  the  Godhead. 
So,  that  when  it  reaches  the  sinner,  it  bears  upon  it  the  impress 
of  the  divine  justice,  as  well  as  of  the  divine  benignity.     It  is  only 


340 


BOOTHS  REIGN  OF  GRACE. 


by  the  acceptance  of  this  deed  on  the  part  of  the  sinner,  that  God 
will  consent  on  His  part  to  take  the  sinner  into  acceptance.  He 
will  not  enter  into  fellowship  with  the  guilty,  but  in  such  a  way 
as  shall  secure  their  complete  recognition  of  all  the  attributes  of 
His  nature.  Forgiveness  by  a  mere  demonstration  of  mercy  is 
not  that  way.  Reward  from  Him  as  a  generous  master,  to  man 
for  his  own  righteousness,  through  an  unworthy  servant,  is  not 
that  way.  The  way  must  be  such  as  to  manifest  not  a  degraded, 
but  a  vindicated  Sovereign  ;  and  so,  that  the  mercy  which  He 
awards  shall  be  that,  not  of  fallen,  but  of  exalted  majesty.  And 
hence  the  peremptory  announcement,  that  no  man  cometh  unto 
the  Father  but  by  the  Son,  and  the  no  less  peremptory  rejection 
of  every  man  who  offers  by  any  other  approach,  to  draw  nigh  unto 
the  sanctuary.  The  whole  character  of  heaven's  jurisprudence 
hangs  upon  the  question,  Whether  man  shall  stand  before  God 
upon  his  own  righteousness,  or  the  righteousness  of  Christ?  nor  is 
there  a  more  direct  and  pointed  article  in  that  covenant  by  which 
a  sinner  joins  himself  to  God,  than,  that  on  the  one  ground  he  will 
never  meet  with  acceptance,  and  on  the  other  ground,  he  will 
never  miss  it. 

It  is  painful  to  be  told  of  the  insecurity  of  all  those  refuges  to 
which  nature  most  fondly  clings,  and  in  which  she  most  rejoices 
as  her  favorite  hiding-place.  Man  is  never  more  in  his  element, 
than  when  building  a  security  before  God,  on  some  plea  or  pallia- 
tion of  his  own  ;  and  it  is  not  without  a  sigh,  or  without  a  strug- 
gle, that  he  can  behold  the  foundation  of  all  merit  in  himself  ut- 
terly swept  away.  The  only  redress  we  can  offer,  is  to  assure 
him  of  the  stability  of  that  other,  and  that  only  foundation  on 
which  we  invite  him  to  build.  It  is  to  announce  to  him,  in  the 
language  of  Scripture,  that  as  he  has  failed  in  making  out  a  right- 
eousness by  his  obedience  to  the  law,  "  Christ  is  the  end  of  the 
law  for  this  righteousness,  to  every  one  that  believeth."  It  is  to 
make  him  perceive,  that  if  he  will  only  consent  to  stand  on  the 
righteousness  of  Christ,  as  the  alone  ground  of  his  dependence, 
God  will  stand  by  the  articles  of  His  own  covenant,  for  the  fulfil- 
ment of  which  we  have  both  His  affirmation  and  His  oath,  as  our 
immutable  guarantees.  He  will  never  mock  the  confidence  which 
His  own  word  has  inspired,  and  therefore  one  and  all  should  en- 
courage themselves  on  the  strength  of  this  assurance,  and  cast  the 
cause  of  their  acceptance  on  that  unfailing  plea,  that  is  never  lifted 
up  by  man  without  ascending  in  welcome  to  the  throne  of  God. 
The  merit  of  His  well-beloved  Son  is  to  Him  the  incense  of  a 
sweet-smelling  savor,  so  that  the  guiltiest  creature  who  takes  shel- 
ter there,  has  posted  himself  on  the  very  avenue,  along  which  there 
ever  rolls  the  tide  of  divine  complacency.  We  should  invest  our- 
selves then  with  this  merit,  and  wrap  ourselves  firmly  in  it,  as  in 
a  covering.  We  should  put  on  Christ,  who  is  offered  to  us  with- 
out money  and  without  price.     We  should  present  ourselves  before 


booth's  reign  of  grace.  341 

God,  with  His  invitation  as  our  alone  warrant,  and  the  truth  of 
His  promises,  which  are  yea  and  amen  in  Christ  Jesus,  as  our 
alone  confidence.  His  place  in  the  new  covenant  is  to  declare 
our  forgiveness,  through  the  blood  of  a  satisfying  atonement.  Our 
place  in  the  covenant,  is  to  give  credit  to  that  declaration.  If  each 
of  the  parties  take  his  own  place,  all  the  promises  that  have  passed 
from  the  one  to  the  other  will  have  their  fulfilment.  If  we  have 
faith  in  God,  according  to  our  faith,  so  will  be  His  faithfulness. 

The  act  of  laying  hold  of  this  covenant,  is  primarily  and  essen- 
tially an  act  of  the  mind.  It  is  a  business,  at  the  doing  of  which, 
there  may  have  been  no  visible  or  external  movement  at  all;  a 
transaction  entered  upon,  and  completed  in  no  other  character  of 
agency,  than  the  character  of  thought,  and  the  fruit  of  a  silent  in- 
terview between  the  Spirit  of  God  and  the  spirit  of  man,  the  for- 
mer showing  unto  the  latter  the  things  of  Christ,  and  the  latter 
rendering  the  consent  of  his  understanding  and  belief  to  this  dem- 
onstration. These  are  the  unseen  but  substantial  steps,  by  which 
an  act  of  reconciliation  is  struck  between  the  two  parties,  and. 
both  the  overtures  on  the  one  side,  and  the  responses  on  the  other, 
may  be  altogether  mental.  When  God  makes  it  known  to  the 
sinner,  by  His  word  and  Spirit,  that  Christ  hath  wrought  out  a 
perfect  righteousness,  to  the  whole  use  and  validity  of  which  he  is 
just  as  welcome  as  if  the  righteousness  were  personally  his  own  ; 
and  when  the  sinner,  persuaded  of  the  truth  of  this,  is  simply  trans- 
lated into  the  same  confidence  before  God  that  he  would  have 
had,  had  his  own  personal  righteousness  been  perfect  like  that  of 
Christ's  ;  then  the  covenant  of  grace  is  in  very  deed  entered  upon, 
and  without  any  other  forth-putting  on  the  part  of  God,  than  the 
exhibition  of  His  word  to  man,  and  any  other  forth-putting  on  the 
part  of  man,  than  the  acquiescence  that  he  has  rendered  thereto. 
God's  declaration  of  a  righteousness  unto  all,  and  upon  all  who 
believe,  constitutes  His  offer.  The  credit  we  give  to  this  declara- 
tion constitutes  our  acceptance.  To  receive  Christ,  we  have  only 
to  believe  in  His  name.  It  is  altogether  a  mental  process.  Our 
renunciation  of  the  plea  of  our  own  righteousness,  is  a  mental  act. 
Our  reliance  on  the  plea  of  the  righteousness  of  Christ,  is  a  men- 
tal act.  Our  drawing  upon  God  for  forgiveness  and  justification 
in  the  name  of  this  righteousness,  is  a  mental  act.  And  God  hath 
graciously  bound  Himself  to  accept  and  to  honor  this  method  of 
drawing.  He  has  so  ordered  the  covenant  between  us  and  Him, 
that  on  our  simply  counting  Him  faithful  who  hath  promised,  He 
counts  Himself  pledged  to  the  fulfilment  on  us  of  what  is  so  prom- 
ised. Could  we  state  the  thing  more  freely  we  would  do  it,  for 
sure  we  are  that  the  more  freely  it  is  stated,  the  more  truly  it  is 
stated.  We  have  failed  in  making  out  a  title-deed  to  God's  favor 
by  our  own  obedience.  Christ  hath  made  one  out  for  us  by  His 
obedience.  If  we  believe  it  to  be  a  good  title-deed,  it  is  ours,  if 
we  will.     Should  we  be  satisfied  with  it,  God  is.     We  are  putting 


342  booth's  reign  of  grace. 

honor  upon  Christ,  when  we  trust  in  the  plea  of  His  righteous- 
ness ;  and  God  is  putting  honor  upon  Christ,  when  He  sustains 
the  validity  of  this  plea.  Thus,  there  is  a  common  place  of  meet- 
ing between  God  and  the  sinner,  when  the  belief  of  the  one,  and 
the  blessing  of  the  other,  come  into  close  and  rejoicing  fellowship. 
Should  any  one  who  reads  his  Bible,  and  relying  on  God's  testi- 
mony conceive  this  belief,  then,  on  the  strength  of  this  mental  in- 
clination alone,  he  has  laid  hold  of  the  covenant.  He  has  become 
invested  with  a  complete  righteousness,  the  whole  reward  of 
which  will  be  conferred  on  him,  simply  because  of  his  reliance 
upon  it.  It  is  his  by  faith.  A  negotiation  has  been  going  on  be- 
tween God  and  his  soul,  and  such  is  the  force  and  obligation  of 
the  contract  which  has  resulted  from  it,  between  the  two  parties 
— that  while  the  one  is  bound  to  depend,  the  other  is  bound  not  to 
disappoint  him. 

We  never  shall  obtain  any  secure  or  legitimate  rest  to  our 
minds,  till  we  have  thus  found  it  in  Jesus  Christ,  as  the  Lord  our 
righteousness — till  we  have  come  to  trust  wholly  in  His  merit, 
and  not  at  all  in  our  own,  as  our  alone  plea  of  meritorious  accept- 
ance with  the  righteous  Lawgiver — till  the  free  offer  of  a  title  to 
eternal  life,  through  the  obedience  of  another,  be  met  by  our 
faithful  acceptance  of  it ;  and  on  cleaving  to  it  as  our  single  but 
sufficient  claim  to  reconciliation,  have  learned  in  this  attitude  to 
walk  in  quietness,  and  with  confidence  before  God. 

It  is  not  in  our  power  to  reason  any  one  into  this  confidence. 
It  springs  in  the  heart  of  man,  on  the  simple  statement  of  the  truth, 
and  by  the  manifestation  of  that  truth,  by  the  Spirit,  unto  the  con- 
science. Argument  and  eloquence  are  alike  unavailing  towards 
the  production  of  it.  It  is  by  the  doctrine  being  presented  to  the 
mind,  and  the  mind  perceiving  in  the  doctrine  a  counterpart  to  its 
own  wants  ;  it  is  thus  that  the  faith  comes  which  is  unto  salvation. 
We  have  endeavored  to  offer  a  faithful  exhibition  of  the  truth  as 
it  is  in  Jesus  ;  and  it  is  the  part  of  the  inquirer  to  ponder  it  atten- 
tively, and  the  Spirit  may  so  convince  of  sin,  and  may  so  manifest 
the  suitableness  of  the  proffered  Saviour,  as  to  assure  him,  that 
this  is  indeed  the  wished-for  remedy  to  the  grievous  and  deep  felt 
disease.  And  therefore  would  we  state  the  averments  of  Scrip- 
ture, on  this  most  essential  and  interesting  of  all  subjects,  with  the 
view  of  putting  it  to  those  who  have  sought  for  rest,  and  have  not 
yet  found  it,  whether  these  words  bear  not  the  evidence  of  a  tes- 
timony from  heaven,  seeing  it  is  only  by  a  sure  and  simple  reliance 
upon  them,  that  they  can  ?'each  the  object  they  have  so  long  and 
so  vainly  been  in  quest  of. 

"  Christ  was  delivered  for  our  offences."  "  Christ  hath  made 
an  end  of  transgressions,  and  brought  in  an  everlasting  righteous- 
ness." "  God  hath  set  Him  forth  a  propitiation  for  the  sins  of  the 
world."  "  He  died  the  just  for  the  unjust,  to  bring  us  unto  God." 
"  He  has  been  made  sin  for  us,  though  He  knew  no  sin,  that  we 


booth's  reign  of  grace.  343 

might  become  the  righteousness  of  God  in  Him."  ''Justified  by- 
faith,  we  have  peace  with  God,  through  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord." 
"  And  all  who  believe  in  Him,  are  justified  from  all  things,  from 
which  they  could  not  be  justified  by  the  law."  Inasmuch  that  one 
shall  say,  "  In  the  Lord  have  I  righteousness  ;"  and  "  this  is  the 
name  whereby  He  shall  be  called,  The  Lord  our  righteousness." 
The  labor  of  a  whole  life  directed  to  the  object  of  establishing  a 
merit  of  our  own,  will  only  widen  our  distance  from  peace  ;  and, 
we  know  of  nothing  that  will  send  this  visitant  to  our  agitated 
bosoms,  but  a  firm  and  simple  reliance  on  these  declarations. 
The  unbelief  of  man  is  the  only  obstacle  which  the  mercy  of  God 
in  Christ  has  to  struggle  with ;  nor  do  we  know  of  one  other  step 
that  is  necessary,  but  an  act  of  faith  on  the  part  of  the  sinner,  that 
this  mercy  may  take  its  ample  effect  and  fulfilment  upon  his  per- 
son. It  is  simply  by  an  act  of  believing,  by  a  pure  act  of  the 
mind,  that  he  enters  into  reconciliation,  and  a  covenant  is  estab- 
lished, as  steadfast  and  immutable  as  it  is  in  the  power  of  solemn 
guarantees  to  make  it — a  covenant  with  only  one  tie,  but  that  a 
most  sufficient  one,  to  bind  it,  even  the  tie  which  subsists  between 
the  faith  of  the  creature,  and  the  faithfulness  of  the  Creator. 

And  it  is  for  the  purpose  of  presenting  to  our  readers  a  full  and 
very  able  exposition  of  the  truths  on  which  we  have  been  insisting, 
that  we  have  introduced  into  our  Series  of  Christian  Authors  the 
following  Treatise,  on  "  The  Reign  of  Grace,  from  its  rise  to  its 
consummation,"  by  Abraham  Booth,  which  we  earnestly  recom- 
mend to  their  attentive  perusal,  as  one  of  the  most  powerful  and 
luminous,  and  comprehensive  expositions  of  the  dispensation  of 
grace  with  which  we  are  acquainted.  In  this  Treatise,  they  will 
find  the  Gospel  of  the  Grace  of  God  exhibited  in  all  the  fulness 
and  freeness  of  its  unrestricted  offers  of  mercy,  through  the  Sav- 
iour, to  guilty  man — in  all  the  extent  of  its  exuberant  blessings, 
in  its  rich  provisions  for  deliverance  from  condemnation  and  guilt, 
and  restoration  to  the  favor  and  friendship  of  God — in  all  the  effi- 
cacy of  its  renovating  and  sanctifying  influences  in  forming  us  to 
holiness,  and  in  assimilating  us  to  the  spirit  and  character  of  God 
— and  in  all  the  benign  and  diversified  operations,  which  a  God 
of  infinite  wisdom  and  love  has  fitted  it  to  produce,  by  causing  it 
to  reign  unto  eternal  life  through  Jesus  Christ,  as  made  of  God 
unto  us  wisdom,  and  righteousness,  and  sanctification,  and  com- 
plete redemption. 

Originating,  as  those  blessings  and  privileges  do,  in  this  grace, 
it  is  of  mighty  importance  for  us  to  ascertain,  whether  we  have 
closed  with  God  on  the  terms  of  His  own  covenant,  and  thus  have 
been  made  partakers  of  this  grace,  and  whether  its  reign  has  been 
established  in  our  hearts.  And  we  cannot  refer  the  reader,  who 
is  in  earnest  about  his  salvation,  to  any  Treatise  better  fitted  than 
that  of  Abraham  Booth,  to  give  him  sure  and  satisfying  evidences 


344  booth's  reign  of  grace. 

for  ascertaining  the  soundness  and  security  of  his  hopes  for  eter- 
nity. He  presents  grace,  as  reigning  through  Jesus  Christ  unto 
eternal  life,  to  sinners ;  and  he  invites  the  chief  of  sinners,  by 
putting  faith  in  the  testimony  of  God,  to  lay  hold  of  the  offered 
grace,  and  thus  appropriate  to  themselves  the  blessings  of  pardon, 
and  peace,  and  justification,  which  God  has  provided  through  the 
atonement  and  righteousness  of  Christ ;  and  which,  in  the  procla- 
mations of  the  Gospel,  are  freely  and  unreservedly  offered  to  all 
who  will.  On  this,  the  alone  warrant  of  faith,  he  invites  all  to 
enter  into  peace  and  reconciliation  with  God,  and  by  judging  Him 
faithful  who  hath  promised,  to  enjoy  the  blessedness  of  the  man 
whose  sins  are  covered,  and  to  whom  the  Lord  does  not  impute 
transgression. 

But  while  faith  in  the  free  grace  and  offered  pardon  of  the  Gos- 
pel puts  peace  and  joy  into  the  heart  of  the  believer,  it  is  no  less 
fitted  to  produce  purity  and  holiness.  This,  indeed  is  the  tenden- 
cy, as  well  as  the  main  and  ultimate  design  of  the  Gospel,  and  it 
is  on  this  account  that  we  estimate  so  highly  the  Treatise  we  are 
now  recommending,  that  it  so  nobly  vindicates  the  doctrines  of 
grace  as  doctrines  according  to  godliness.  And  if  there  is  any 
portion  of  this  work  to  which,  more  than  another,  we  would  par- 
ticularly direct  the  attention  of  our  readers,  it  is  to  those  chapters 
"On  Grace  as  it  reigns  in  our  Sanctification,"  and  "  On  the  Ne- 
cessity of  Holiness  and  good  Works."  There  is,  in  the  minds 
of  many,  a  fancied  alliance  between  free  grace  and  an  immunity 
to  sin ;  that,  since  pardon  is  the  free  gift  of  God,  through  the 
blood  of  the  atonement,  there  is  no  restraint  laid  on  men's  incli- 
nations to  sin — that  since  we  are  justified  wholly  by  the  righteous- 
ness of  another,  the  necessity  of  personal  righteousness  is  as 
wholly  superseded — and  that  since  we  cannot  earn  heaven  by  our 
own  obedience,  all  the  motives  and  securities  for  obedience  are 
removed.  We  have  not  room  to  attempt  an  exposure  of  this  oft- 
repeated,  but  unfounded,  assertion — an  assertion,  to  which  the 
dearest  averments  of  Scripture,  and  the  experience  of  every  true 
believer,  give  the  most  triumphant  refutation.  And  we  count  it 
unnecessary  to  enter  into  any  defence  of  the  doctrines  of  grace 
from  the  charge  of  licentiousness,  after  the  able  and  unanswera- 
ble vindication  which  the  present  volume  furnishes.  We  do  not 
indeed  deny,  that  many  professors  of  the  Gospel  give  some  color 
for  such  an  impeachment,  by  profaning  that  holy  name  by  which 
they  are  called,  and  by  failing  to  adorn  the  doctrines  of  grace  by 
lives  and  conversations  becoming  the  Gospel  ;  but  such  men  have 
never  felt  the  reign  of  grace  in  their  hearts,  otherwise  it  would 
not  have  failed  to  teach  them  "to  deny  ungodliness  and  worldly 
lustB,  and  to  live  soberly,  righteously,  and  godly  in  the  world  ;" 
and,  while  such  men  repose  a  fancied  confidence  in  the  death  of 
Const  as  their  deliverance  from  condemnation,  and  as  their  passpori 


booth's  reign  of  grace.  345 

to  heaven,  they  have  utterly  mistaken  one  of  the  main  designs  of 
Christ's  death,  which  was  "to  deliver  us  from  all  iniquity,  and  to 
purify  us  unto  Himself  a  peculiar  people  zealous  of  good  works." 
If  heaven  consists  in  God  s  manifesting  the  spiritual  glories  of  His 
holy  and  perfect  character,  then  must  our  spirit  and  character  be 
kindred  to  His  own,  before  we  can  delight  in  the  love  and  con- 
templation of  such  glory.  To  love  and  enjoy  God,  we  must  be 
like  God.  And  they  utterly  mistake  the  design  of  the  Gospel, 
who  conceive  of  it  as  a  mere  act  of  indemnity  ;  and  the  Gospel  has 
not  been  believed  by  them  at  all,  if  it  has  not  come  to  them  in  the 
power  and  beneficence  of  holiness  and  grace,  to  change  their 
hearts  and  their  affections  into  the  love  of  what  is  holy,  and 
righteous,  and  excellent ;  nor  can  they  entertain  any  well-founded 
hopes  of  heaven  hereafter,  in  whom  there  is  no  process  of  resto- 
ration going  at  present  to  the  lost  image  of  the  Godhead,  and  in 
whose  hearts  grace  is  not  exerting  its  reigning  power,  to  assimi- 
late them  to  the  spirit  and  character  of  God. 

Whatever  there  may  be  now,  in  the  days  of  Paul,  at  least,  there 
were  men  who  turned  the  grace  of  God  into  licentiousness,  and 
who  ranked  among  the  privileges  of  the  Gospel  an  immunity  for 
sin.  And  it  is  striking  to  observe  the  effect  of  this  corruption  on 
the  mind  of  the  apostle  ; — that  he  who  braved  all  the  terrors  of 
persecuting  violence,  that  he  who  stood  undismayed  before  kings 
and  governors,  and  could  lift  his  intrepid  testimony  in  the  hearing 
of  an  enraged  multitude — that  he  who,  when  bound  by  a  chain 
between  two  soldiers,  still  sustained  an  invincible  constancy  of 
spirit,  and  could  live  in  fearlessness,  and  triumph,  with  the  dark 
imagery  of  an  approaching  execution  in  his  eye — that  he  who 
counted  not  his  life  dear  unto  him,  and  whose  manly  breast  bore 
him  up  amidst  all  the  threats  of  human  tyranny,  and  the  grim  ap- 
paratus of  martyrdom — that  this  man  so  firm  and  so  undaunted, 
wept  like  a  child  when  he  heard  of  those  disciples  that  turned  the 
pardon  of  the  cross  into  an  encouragement  for  doing  evil.  The 
fiercest  hostilities  of  the  Gospel's  open  enemies  he  could  brave,  but 
when  he  heard  of  the  foul  dishonor  done  to  the  name  of  his  Mas- 
ter, by  the  moral  worthlessness  of  those  who  were  the  Gospel's 
professing  friends,  this  he  could  not  bear — all  that  firmness,  which 
so  upheld  him  unfaltering  and  unappalled  in  the  battles  of  the  faith, 
forsook  him  then;  and  this  noblest  of  champions  on  the  fieid  of 
conflict  and  of  controversy,  when  he  heard  of  the  profligacy  of  his 
own  converts,  was  fairly  overcome  by  the  tidings,  and  gave  way 
to  all  the  softness  of  womanhood.  When  every  other  argument 
fails,  for  keeping  us  on  the  path  of  integrity  and  holiness,  we 
should  think  of  the  argument  of  Paul  in  tears.  It  may  be  truly 
termed  a  picturesque  argument,  nor  are  we  aware  of  a  more  im- 
pressive testimony  in  the  whole  compass  of  Scripture,  to  the  in- 
dispensable need  of  virtue  and  moral  goodness  in  a  believer,  than 

44 


346  booth's  reign  of  grace. 

is  to  be  found  in  that  passage  where  Paul  says  of  these  unworthy 
professors  of  the  faith,  "  For  many  walk,  of  whom  I  have  told  you 
often,  and  now  tell  you  even  weeping,  that  they  are  the  enemies 
of  the  cross  of  Christ ;  whose  end  is  destruction,  whose  god  is 
their  belly,  and  whose  glory  is  in  their  shame,  who  mind  earthly 
things." 


INTRODUCTORY   ESSAY 

TO 

SERIOUS  REFLECTIONS  ON  TIME  AND  ETERNITY. 
BY  JOHN  SHOWER. 

AND 

ON  THE  CONSIDERATION  OF  OUR  LATTER  END, 

AND    OTHER    CONTEMPLATIONS. 

BY  SIR  MATTHEW  HALE,  Knt. 


There  are  certain  truths,  which  lie  remote  from  all  direct  and 
immediate  observation — and  which  require  more  than  one  step  on 
the  pai't  of  the  human  mind,  ere  they  are  arrived  at — which  can 
only,  in  fact,  be  reached  by  a  reasoning  process,  that  consists  of 
many  steps  ;  and  for  the  describing  of  which,  the  habit  of  sus- 
tained attention,  and  the  talent  of  sound  and  legitimate  inference, 
and  the  power  of  combining  principles  which  are  known,  and 
thence  eliciting  a  truth  or  a  doctrine  that  was  unknown,  must  all 
be  summoned  to  the  work,  and  be  put  into  strenuous  and  contin- 
ued exercise  for  days,  or  often  for  months  together,  ere  the  toils 
of  the  devoted  inquirer  be  rewarded  by  the  discovery  that  he  is  in 
quest  of.  There  is  much,  for  example,  both  of  mathematical  and 
political  science,  which  is  incontrovertibly  true,  but  which,  instead 
of  being  taken  up  at  one  act  by  the  understanding,  as  if  it  lay  on 
the  very  surface  of  contemplation,  can  only  be  grasped  into  the 
possession  of  the  mind,  by  being  travelled  to  through  a  long  inter- 
medium of  many  transitions  and  many  arguments — and  they  are 
only  a  gifted  few  who  can  bear  the  fatigues  of  such  a  journey, 
and  to  whom  the  labors  of  the  midnight  oil  afford  a  congenial 
and  much-loved  employment,  and  who  have  had  their  intellectual 
powers  disciplined  to  the  march  of  a  logical  or  lengthened  inves- 
tigation. The  Smith  of  the  one  science,  and  the  Newton  of  the 
other,  afford  very  striking  illustrations  of  this  kind  of  mental  supe- 
riority over  the  rest  of  the  species — and  in  virtue  of  which  they 


348  shower's  serious  reflections. 

were  enabled  to  discover  what  before  to  the  whole  of  mankind 
was  utterly  unknown ;  and  in  virtue  of  which  their  followers  are 
enabled  to  see  what  the  majority  of  mankind  do  not  see.  It  is 
only  seen  in  fact  from  a  summit  of  demonstration — and  this  is 
only  attained  by  a  series  of  ascending  movements — and  the  few 
who  have  made  their  way  to  the  temple  which  stands  upon  such 
an  eminence  as  this,  find  inscribed  upon  it  "the  temple  of  philos- 
ophy." Now,  what  we  maintain  is,  that  this  is  altogether  distinct 
from  M  the  temple  of  wisdom."  Its  successful  worshippers  are  men 
of  reach  and  men  of  acquirement,  and  men  who,  from  the  eleva- 
tion they  have  won,  and  on  which  they  have  posted  themselves, 
can  command  a  farther  prospect  over  some  walk,  or  some  domain 
of  the  great  intellectual  territory,  than  their  fellows  around  them. 
And  yet  they  are  not  on  this  account  men  of  wisdom,  nor  have 
we  arrived  at  the  true  meaning  and  application  of  this  epithet,  if 
we  either  think  that  to  be  wise  we  must  be  philosophers,  or  that, 
if  philosophers,  we  are  therefore  wise. 

There  are  certain  other  truths,  difficult  of  access,  which  are 
distinct,  and  distinguishable  we  think  from  those  that  we  have 
just  now  adverted  to — not  such  as  are  gained  by  a  continuous 
effort  along  a  line  of  investigation — not  such  as  come  in  view 
upon  the  eye  of  the  beholder,  after  he  has  scaled  one  of  the  alti- 
tudes of  science — not  such  as  lie  remote,  by  being  placed  at  a 
distance,  but  such  rather  as  lie  hidden  from  common  minds,  be- 
cause deeply  enveloped  under  the  surface  of  common  observation. 
To  come  at  these,  is  not  to  plod  and  to  persevere  from  one  acqui- 
sition to  another,  as  in  the  former  instances.  It  is  done  by  a  pro- 
cess perhaps,  too,  in  which  all  the  elements  of  ratiocination  are 
concerned,  but  a  process  so  rapid,  as  to  be  felt  even  by  the  owner 
of  the  mind  through  which  it  passes,  like  an  act  of  momentary  in- 
tuition. Such  is  the  quickness  of  his  penetrating  eye,  that  what 
to  others  is  a  thick  and  impalpable  veil,  hides  not  from  him  the 
truth  or  the  principle  which  lurks  beneath  it — and  with  one 
glance  of  perception,  can  he  discern  many  of  the  secret  things 
which  lie  under  the  broad  and  ostensible  face  of  human  affairs — 
and  this  faculty  of  his  though  certainly  sharpened  by  cultivation, 
and  cradled  up  to  its  present  maturity  among  the  varieties  of  ex- 
perience and  of  life,  is  not  of  slow  operation  like  the  former,  but 
is  sudden  in  all  its  exercises,  and  quite  immediate  in  all  the  infor- 
mation which  it  fetches  to  its  owner.  One  of  its  main  offices  is 
to  detect  what  is  latent,  and  to  ordinary  minds,  inaccessible  in  the 
character  of  man.  This  it  does  not  by  any  tardy  movement  of 
the  understanding,  but.  by  something  like  the  tact  of  an  instanta- 
neous discernment,  by  the  look  of  an  instinctive  sagacity,  directed 
towards  any  exhibition  either  in  the  countenance  or  in  the  con- 
duct of  another.  It  is  this  faculty  which  gives  the  eye  of  a  lynx 
to  the  satirist ;  and  which  endues,  with  all  his  readiness  and  ad- 
dress, the  wily  ambassador,  who,  himself  unseen,  can  cast  a  pierc- 


shower's  serious  reflections.  349 

ing  intelligence  through  all  the  windings  and  intrigues  of  a  cabi- 
net ;  and  which  dexterously  guides  its  possessor's  way  amonor 
the  politics  of  a  city  corporation  ;  and  which  even  achieves,  as 
wondrous  triumphs  as  any  of  subtlety  and  skill  among  the  severest 
collisions,  or  the  low  jockeyship  of  a  market.  It  is  far  more  dif- 
fused than  science  and  scholarship  are  through  the  various  ranks 
of  society.  You  will  meet  with  it  in  the  homeliest  walks  of  life — ■ 
nay,  sometimes,  in  all  its  perfection,  under  the  guise,  and  in  the 
attitude,  of  a  country  simpleton.  It  is  not  confined  to  the  chica- 
nery of  courts.  For  the  play  of  as  deep  and  as  dexterous  artifice 
may  be  set  agoing  in  the  negotiations  of  private  interest,  as  has 
ever  been  recorded  in  the  annals  of  diplomacy.  And  whether  it 
be  swindling  without  the  law,  or  swindling  within  the  law,  may 
there  be  the  same  over-reach  of  one  shrewder  understanding  over 
the  blind  and  unsuspecting  confidence  of  another,  in  the  contests 
of  ordinary  trade,  as  in  the  contests  of  politics.  The  man  who  is 
thus  gifted,  sees  deeper  than  his  fellows.  He  can  read  the  vanity, 
or  the  weakness,  or  the  delicacy  which  are  in  another's  heart,  and 
he  can  practise  accordingly.  It  is  true,  that  he  may  be  thus  wise 
as  a  serpent,  and  yet  harmless  as  a  dove.  But  the  mere  wisdom 
of  the  serpent  is  not  true  wisdom,  in  the  soundest  acceptation  of 
the  term.  The  epithet  wise,  according  to  its  largest  and  its 
soundest  acceptation,  is  neither  exemplified  by  him,  who,  by  dint 
of  meditation,  sees  farthest  into  the  secrets  of  philosophy,  or 
who,  by  dint  of  shrewd  and  oft-repeated  observation,  sees  deepest 
into  the  mysteries  of  our  nature — nor  have  we  yet  reached  the 
conception  of  a  truly  wise  man,  if  we  think,  that  to  be  wise  we 
must  be  political,  or,  that  if  political,  we  are  therefore  wise. 

The  consideration  of  our  latter  end,  which  forms  the  principal 
topic  of  the  following  volume,  is  that  which  the  Scripture  affirms 
to  be  true  wisdom.  "  Oh  that  they  were  wise,  that  they  under- 
stood this,  that  they  considered  their  latter  end."  But  the  truth 
of  our  mortality,  by  the  considering  of  which  aright  we  are  wise, 
belongs  neither  to  the  former,  nor  to  the  latter  classification.  We 
do  not  need  to  travel  far  in  quest  of  its  discovery.  Neither  do 
we  need  to  dive  among  the  recesses  of  a  profound  observation, 
that  we  may  be  able  to  fetch  it  up,  and  to  appropriate  it.  It  is  a 
truth  which,  on  the  very  highway  of  ordinary  life,  forces  itself  on 
the  recognition  of  every  man.  That  world,  through  which  we 
are  all  journeying,  abounds  in  the  sign-posts  of  mortality ;  and 
many  is  the  passing  funeral  which  obtrudes  this  lesson  upon  our 
eyes :  and  many  are  the  notes  of  that  funeral  bell  which  tolls  it 
upon  our  hearing  ; — and  well  may  the  old,  when  they  think  of  a 
former  generation,  levelled  and  taken  off  by  the  hand  of  death, 
learn  how  sure  it  is,  that  the  living  and  busy  society  around  them 
will  at  length  be  swept  away  ; — and  even  to  the  young,  and  those 
the  likeliest  of  us  all,  does  death  hang  out  its  memorials,  and  gives 
them  to  know  that  it  wields  an  indiscriminating  arm  ; — and  even 


350  shower's  serious  reflections. 

from  those  whom  it  spares  the  longest,  and  comes  to  the  last,  may 
we  learn  how  short  a  process  of  arithmetic  it  is  which  conducts 
every  one  of  us  to  our  latter  end, — and  thus,  through  all  the  pos- 
sible avenues  of  sense,  and  experience,  and  feeling,  do  such  inti- 
mations multiply  upon  us,  and  these  so  plain  and  so  powerful,  and 
ever  and  anon  recurring  with  such  pathos  and  in  such  frequency, 
that,  but  to  those  who  are  sunk  in  idiotism,  is  it  a  lesson  read  and 
recognized  of  all  men.  Nor  is  there  a  living  man  who  does  not 
know,  that  the  march  of  our  actual  generation  is  but  one  vast 
progressive  movement  to  the  grave.  It  is  not  the  acquirement 
of  new  truths,  but  the  right  use  and  consideration  of  old  ones, 
which  constitutes  wisdom.  It  is  not  the  discovery  of  what  was 
before  unknown,  which  signalizes  the  wise  man  above  his  fellows. 
It  is  the  right  and  the  rational  application  of  what  they  know  as 
well  as  he,  but  which  they  do  not  reflect  upon,  and  do  not  pro- 
ceed upon  as  he.  It  is  not  the  man  who  outpeers  his  acquaint- 
ances in  intellectual  wealth,  neither  is  it  the  man  who  outdoes 
them  in  homebred  sagacity — it  is  neither  the  one  nor  the  other, 
who,  in  the  best,  and  most  significant  sense  of  the  term,  is  the  man 
of  wisdom.  It  is  he,  who  acts  upon  the  sureness  of  that  which  is 
sure.  It  is  he,  who  proceeds  upon  the  reality  of  that  which  is 
real.  It  is  he,  who  feels  greatness  of  desire  after  that  which  is 
great,  and  smallness  of  desire  after  that  which  is  small,  and  shapes 
his  doings  to  the  actual  dimensions  of  every  object  which  is  pre- 
sented to  his  understanding.  And  neither  is  it  necessary  that,  in 
respect  of  understanding,  he  should  have  a  capacity  for  more  than 
truths  which  are  familiar  to  all,  and  are  acknowledged  of  all.  He 
has  not  to  go  in  quest  of  strange  or  distant  novelties,  but  only  to 
trace  to  its  right  purpose  that  which  is  near  to  him,  and  within 
reach  of  every  man.  In  a  word,  he  has  not  to  learn  that  which 
is  known  only  to  a  few,  he  has  only  to  consider  that  which  is 
known  to  all.  "  O  that  they  were  wise,  that  they  understood 
this,  that  they  would  consider  their  latter  end  !"  He  has  not  to 
be  taught  the  number  of  his  days,  but  taught  so  to  number  them, 
as  to  apply  his  heart  unto  wisdom. 

He  is  not  in  the  soundest  physical  condition,  who  lives  on  the 
high-wrought  delicacies  of  an  artificial  and  expensive  preparation  ; 
but  he,  the  organs  of  whose  bodily  constitution  are  best  suited  to 
the  bread  and  the  water,  and  the  universal  aliments  which  nature 
has  provided  for  the  healthful  sustenance  of  her  children.  And 
he  is  neither  in  the  best  spiritual,  nor  even  in  the  best  intellectual 
condition,  the  faculties  of  whose  soul  are  ever  on  the  stretch  after 
lofty  and  recondite  doctrine,  or  its  appetite  for  knowledge  pre-oc- 
cupied  with  various  and  exquisite  speculation — but  he,  who  thrives 
on  the  daily  nourishment  of  such  truth  as  is  familiar  to  all— he, 
whose  clear  and  vigorous  eye  admits  most  copiously  of  that  light, 
which  is  poured  around  the  orbit — he,  the  food  of  whose  under- 
standing is  that  common  food  which  is  most  abundant,  and  would 


SHOWER  S    SERIOUS    REFLECTIONS.  351 

also  be  most  salutary,  but  for  the  common  disease  that  overspreads 
the  families  of  our  species — he  who,  with  no  taste,  and  no  capa- 
city for  what  is  remote  or  ingenious,  rightly  comprehends  the  truth 
that  is  at  hand,  and  goes  not  beyond  the  simple  elements  of  being 
in  any  of  his  mental  exercises,  but  who,  if  right  in  these,  has 
reached  a  wisdom  which  philosophy  cannot  reach,  and  who,  if 
sound  in  his  practical  estimate  of  what  is  due  to  Time,  and  what 
is  due  to  Eternity,  is  a  man  of  nobler  aims,  and  far  more  solid  and 
exalted  wisdom,  than  science  can  induce  upon  any  of  its  votaries. 
He  lives  not  upon  the  niceties,  but  upon  the  staple  of  spiritual  fare, 
and  his  spiritual  frame  is  thereby  upheld  in  strength  and  in  pros- 
perity ;  and  in  the  plain  certainties  of  the  coming  death,  and  the 
coming  judgment,  does  he  walk  in  a  way  more  truly  elevated, 
than  that  which  is  trodden  by  any  son  of  literary  ambition  ;  and 
hence  the  impress  of  dignity  and  wisdom  which  we  have  seen  to 
sit  on  the  aspect  of  him,  who,  the  father  of  a  cottage  family,  has 
no  respite  from  toil  but  the  Sabbath,  and  no  reading  but  his  much- 
read  Bible,  and  that  authorship,  of  old  and  humble  piety,  which 
lies  in  little  room  upon  his  shelves.  To  learn  discriminatively 
and  justly  what  wisdom  is,  you  have  just  to  place  the  most  brill- 
iant and  accomplished  philosopher  by  the  side  of  this  venerable 
sage  of  Christianity.  The  one  knows  much,  but  his  is  a  knowledge 
which  terminates  in  itself.  The  other  knows  little,  but  his  is  a 
knowledge  which  is  turned  to  the  purpose  of  his  guidance  here, 
and  his  provision  for  eternity  hereafter.  Wisdom  is  not  bare 
knowledge.  It  is  knowledge  directed  to  its  best  and  fittest,  and 
most  productive  application.  Thus  it  is,  that  there  may  be  much 
knowledge  without  wisdom,  and  there  may  be  much  wisdom  with 
little  knowledge.  It  is  not  he  who  knows  most,  who  is  most  wise, 
but  he,  who  uses  aright  that  which  is  known  and  familiar  to  all 
men.  For,  let  it  be  observed,  that  it  is  with  spiritual  as  with  nat- 
ural food.  The  most  useful  ingredients  of  it  are  the  most  abun- 
dant. Men  may  refuse  to  partake  of  them,  and  starve  and  die, 
and  thus  become,  what  the  majority  of  our  species  actually  are — 
dead  in  trespasses  and  sins.  To  bring  a  man  alive  again  from  the 
apparent  death  of  nature,  we  never  think  of  wooing  back  the  de- 
parted senses  by  the  offer  of  luxuries.  But  we  admit  a  supply  of 
air,  and  try  if  we  can  breathe  in  this  universal  element ;  and  make 
use  of  cold  water,  which  is  to  be  had  in  every  dwelling-place ; 
and  ply  his  taste  with  some  simple  preparation ;  and  could  we  re- 
store him  to  the  common  enjoyment  of  these  very  commonest  ar- 
ticles, we  would  be  satisfied.  And  so  it  is  in  the  case  of  spiritual 
torpor.  To  call  it  back  to  sensibility,  we  would  never  think  of 
elaborate  demonstration.  But  we  would  ring  into  our  patient's 
ear  the  message  of  death,  which  everybody  knows,  but  few  know 
with  application.  We  would  try  to  awaken  his  inner  mat),  by 
the  tidings  of  its  immortality,  which  all  profess  to  have  faith  in, 
while  scarcely  any  human  being  lives  under  the  power  of  it.     We 


352  shower's  serious  reflections. 

would  sound  the  trump  of  alarm,  and  loudly  speak  of  an  angry 
God  and  a  coming  vengeance,  notes  as  familiar  to  his  hearing  as 
is  that  of  the  wind  of  heaven  which  blows  over  him,  while,  in  their 
terror  and  in  their  urgency,  they  are  as  unfelt  by  the  soul,  as  if  its 
ears  of  communication  with  a  human  voice  were  altogether  closed. 
We  would  deal  forth  upon  him  the  simplicities  of  the  Gospel — and 
tell  of  sin  and  of  the  Sacrifice — intimations  which  may  be  as  read- 
ily taken  up  by  the  peasant  as  by  the  philosopher — but  which,  until 
roused  from  their  carnal  lethargy,  are  unlike  unheeded  by  them 
both.  To  recall  them  from  such  a  paralysis  as  this,  we  would  not 
ply  them  with  that  which  is  severe  and  elaborate,  but  would,  if 
possible,  quicken  and  revive  them  by  that  which  is  elementary. 
And  not  he  who  is  led  on  by  argument  to  that  which  is  remote, 
but  he  who  receives  the  touch  of  a  quickening  influence  from  that, 
the  certainty  of  which  is  obvious  to  all,  while  the  sense  of  it  is 
nearly  unfelt  by  all — he  it  is  who  hath  attained  the  only  true  un- 
derstanding— he  it  is  who  is  wise  unto  salvation. 

We  cannot  but  perceive,  how,  while  the  doctrines  of  our  faith 
are  plain,  in  opposition  to  what  is  recondite,  not  requiring,  like  the 
difficulties  of  science,  a  prolonged  and  strenuous  investigation — yet 
still  plain  as  they  are,  they  need  the  influence  of  the  Spirit  for  the 
true  understanding  of  them,  just  as  a  dead  body  needs  the  touch 
of  some  miraculous  personage,  ere  it  can  breathe  the  all-encom- 
passing atmosphere,  or  use  the  universal  elements,  or  be  sustained 
by  the  common  bounties  of  nature.  And  so  of  the  soul.  It  is  not 
by  conducting  it  through  any  lengthened,  or  logical  demonstration 
of  the  schools,  that  we  restore  it  to  that  intelligence,  the  possession 
of  which  assures  the  possessor  of  life  everlasting.  It  is  by  visiting 
it  with  the  manifestation  of  certain  great  and  impending,  but  withal 
simple  realities.  The  wisdom  which  is  thus  gotten,  is  altogether 
distinct  from  the  wisdom  of  philosophy — hidden  in  fact  from  many 
such  wise,  and  many  such  prudent,  and  revealed  unto  babes. 

Let  us  just  look  to  the  practical  habit  of  nature,  and  see  that,  in 
the  face  of  the  clearest  and  plainest  arithmetic,  it  gives  a  superi- 
ority to  the  present  over  the  future  world,  and  then  may  we  ac- 
knowledge, that  if  it  be  needful  to  heal  the  diseased  eyes  of  the 
blind,  ere  they  can  see  of  the  common  light,  or  to  heal  the  diseased 
lungs  of  the  consumptive,  ere  they  can  breathe  aright  of  the  com- 
mon air,  or  to  heal  the  diseased  constitution  of  the  sickly,  ere  they 
can  turn  into  aliment  the  common  food  of  all  men, — so  is  it  equally 
needful  that  a  physician's  hand  be  laid  upon  our  diseased  spirits, 
ere  they  be  nourished  by  truths  so  palpable,  as  that  eternity  is 
greater  than  time,  and  the  enjoyment  of  God  in  heaven,  greater 
than  that  of  all  those  earthly  blessings  which  he  causes  to  descend 
on  our  fleeting  pilgrimage. 

We  know  not  on  whom  it  is,  that  the  burden  of  this  sore  disease 
still  lies,  in  all  its  native  aggravation,  or  from  whom  it  has  been 
taken  away.     We  can  only  address  our  admonitions  to  the  reader 


shower's  serious  reflections.  353 

at  a  venture.  It  is  like  the  shooting  of  an  arrow  among  a  multi- 
tude, when  who  knows  what  individual  will  be  struck  by  it  ?  It 
is  under  the  declaration  of  the  truth,  that  a  child  of  darkness  be- 
comes a  disciple  of  light.  But  even  the  same  truth  which  awakens 
the  former,  is  the  very  truth  which  needs  to  be  repeated,  again 
and  again,  in  the  hearing  of  the  latter,  to  keep  him  awake.  The 
pure  mind  must  be  stirred  up  in  the  way  of  remembrance.  And 
it  is  not  enough  that  truth  be  received  at  the  first ;  in  the  language 
of  the  Bible,  it  must  also  be  considered.  The  food  which  is  taken 
in  is  of  no  use,  unless,  by  a  digestive  process,  it  be  turned  into  ali- 
ment. Truth  is  the  food  of  the  soul.  We  receive  it  by  faith. 
But  if  we  keep  it  not  in  memory,  we,  in  the  words"  of  the  apos- 
tle, have  believed  in  vain.  The  shortness  of  life,  and  the  certainty 
of  its  approaching  extinction,  may  come  upon  the  spirit  in  a  pow- 
erful, but  momentary  visitation.  This  gleam  of  light  must  be 
brightened,  and  sustained,  and  perpetuated.  It  must  be  kept  alive 
amid  the  shock  of  many  rude  and  adverse  elements.  It  must 
shine  as  a  lamp  upon  all  our  paths.  The  converse  of  this  world's 
companies  should  not  darken  it.  The  heat  and  the  hurry  of  our 
daily  business  should  not  stifle  it.  That  sorrow  which  worketh 
death,  should  not  swallow  it  up  into  the  oblivion  of  our  immortal- 
ity, nor  should  the  still  more  dangerous  gale  of  prosperity  blow  this 
pure  and  sacred  flame  into  utter  annihilation.  It  is  not  enough 
that  we  acknowledge  the  truth  at  stated  times  ;  we  must  give 
earnest  heed  to  it,  lest  at  any  time  we  should  let  it  slip.  It  is  not 
enough  that  we  should  know  our  latter  end — nor  has  our  under- 
standing of  this  been  advanced  into  true  wisdom,  till  it  be  our  care 
and  our  habit  to  consider  our  latter  end. 

The  practical  habit  of  our  souls  ought  to  be  a  habit  of  anticipa- 
tion, and  of  anticipation  reaching  even  unto  death,  and  to  the  im- 
mortality which  lies  beyond  it.  A  realizing  sense  of  what  that  is, 
which  a  coming  futurity  is  to  bring  with  speed,  and  perhaps  with 
suddenness,  to  our  doors,  would  change  the  habit  and  posture  of 
the  soul  altogether.  Could  we  only  figure  to  our  imaginations  the 
ebbing,  and  the  quivering,  and  the  agony  of  death,  and  then  charge 
ourselves  with  the  certainty  that  death  is  coming, — could  we  be 
ever  looking  onwards  to  the  day  when  the  last  trumpet  shall  call 
us  from  our  graves  to  the  judgment-seat,  and  give  a  settled  home 
in  our  bosoms  to  the  truth  of  this  awful  revelation,  that  judgment 
is  coming, — could  we  carry  our  frequent  and  daily  thoughts  to  the 
margin  of  eternity,  and,  after  contrasting  the  delight  and  the  drea- 
riness of  its  two  immeasurable  rigions,  with  the  interests  of  that 
short-lived  day  which  separates  the  morning  from  the  evening  of 
our  existence  in  the  world,  consider  how  surely,  on  the  rapid  wing 
of  succession,  eternity  is  coming, — and  simple  as  these  ponderings 
are,  let  them  just  enter  with  the  power  which  they  ought,  and  in 
the  new  complexion  which  they  cast  on  all  that  is  intermediate 
between  us  and  eternity,  and  they  will  both  give  us  other  minds, 

45 


354  shower's  serious  reflections. 

and  make  other  men  of  us.  These  truths  are  plain  enough  for  the 
peasant — but  there  is  in  them  a  challenging  authority,  which 
reaches  even  unto  the  prince.  They  are  fit  for  the  homeliest  un- 
derstandings. Yet  homely  as  they  are,  may  they  be  offered  to 
men  of  all  ranks,  and  all  classes  in  society,  and  they  do  look  hard 
upon  the  pursuits  of  our  existing  generation.  With  so  mighty 
an  instrument  of  demonstration,  as  the  calculus  of  those  months 
that  will  soon  pass  away,  and  of  those  years  that  are  so  easily 
summed  up,  do  we  bring  the  lesson  of  our  mortality  to  bear  upon 
them.  And  be  they  the  children  of  wrealth,  resting  their  security 
on  that  corruptible  foundation,  of  which  gold  and  silver  are 
the  materials, — or  be  they  children  of  poverty,  who  think  that 
they  have  lost  their  all,  because,  without  a  portion  in  time,  they 
have  cast  eternity,  as  a  thing  of  worthlessness,  away  from  them, 
—or,  in  a  word,  be  their  condition  what  it  may,  let  them  be  of 
that  innumerable  multitude  who  use  the  world  not  as  a  road,  but 
as  a  residence, — we  tell  them  that  they  are  carnally-minded,  and 
if  not  arrested  on  the  way,  they  are  fast  posting  to  that  death 
which  is  the  doom  of  all  who  are  so.  Awaken,  awaken,  from 
these  manifold  delusions  by  which  nature  is  encompassed  ! — and 
seek  to  be  spiritually-minded,  that  you  may  have  life  and  peace. 

So  closely  allied  is  the  consideration  of  our  latter  end  with  the 
very  essence  of  wisdom,  that  we  know  not  a  likelier  expedient  for 
shutting  us  up,  and  that  immediately,  unto  Christ — unto  Him,  who 
is  called  the  wisdom  of  God  as  well  as  the  power  of  God — unto 
Him,  in  comparison  of  the  excellency  of  whose  knowledge  all  was 
but  loss,  in  the  estimation  of  the  apostle  ;  insomuch  that  he  deter- 
mined to  know  nothing  save  Jesus  Christ  and  Him  crucified. 
What  is  it  that  makes  us  tarry  in  the  great  work  of  seeking  a 
secure  righteousness  before  God  ?  It  is  because  we  feel  secure 
enough  in  the  meantime  with  the  possession  of  health,  and  the 
enjoyment  of  a  warm  and  well-sheltered  home,  and  the  engross- 
ments of  business,  and  the  delights  of  a  gay,  and  pleasing,  and 
varied  companionship.  These,  mixed  up  with  a  tolerable  sense 
of  our  own  deficiencies,  and  our  own  duties,  serve  altogether  to 
make  us  easy  in  this  evil  world,  and  to  keep  off  from  our  imagi- 
nations all  that  can  give  dread  or  disturbance  in  the  thought  of 
another  world.  The  truth  is,  that  in  these  circumstances,  and 
with  these  feelings,  the  question,  "  Wherewithal  shall  I  appear 
before  God?"  is  never  seriously  entertained.  It  does  not  come 
upon  the  mind  with  the  urgency  of  a  matter  in  hand, — and,  in 
reference  to  the  undoubted  fact,  that  the  most  earthly  men  are  also 
the  most  inimical  to  that  doctrine  which  affirms  the  ground  of  our 
evangelical  acceptance  before  God,  we  believe  the  secret  but  sub- 
stantial explanation  of  the  whole  matter  to  be,  that  the  soul  which 
keeps  a  firm  hold  upon  time,  is  careless  and  thoughtless  about  the 
goodness  of  its  foundation  for  eternity,  He  likes  this  world  best, 
and  if  he  make  good  a  portion  here,  he  will  not  trouble  himself 


SHOWER  S    SERIOUS    REFLECTIONS.  355 


with  any  nice  or  scrupulous  examination  of  what  that  is,  which 
makes  the  best  title-deed  for  an  inheritance  hereafter.  And  this 
will  explain  a  fact  which  we  think  must  be  familiar  to  many — the 
very  summary  process  upon  which  a  man  of  the  world  comes  to  his 
easy  and  agreeable  conclusion  on  the  question  of  his  eternity — the 
very  comfortable  balance  which  he  strikes  between  his  good  points 
and  his  bad  ones — so  as  to  set  aside  all  his  sins  from  the  final  re- 
sult of  this  computation,  and  bring  into  view  nothing  but  his  hu- 
manities and  his  virtues,  on  which  to  rear  a  confidence  before 
God.  It  is  not  by  fully  tracing,  but,  in  the  language  of  parliament, 
by  blinking  the  question,  that  he  comes  to  a  deliverance  which  is 
satisfying  enough  to  his  mind  about  the  world  at  a  distance,  amid 
so  much  to  satisfy  him,  in  the  visible  and  surrounding  world  with 
which  he  has  presently  to  do.  It  makes  all  the  difference,  between 
the  earnestness  of  our  preparation  to  meet  the  creditor,  who  threat- 
ens instant  diligence  upon  our  person,  and  the  creditor  whose  ap- 
plication for  payment  we  can,  by  an  act  of  the  fancy,  put  off,  and 
postpone  to  an  indefinite  distance  away  from  us.  And  next  time 
you  see  a  thriving,  prosperous,  good-humored  man  of  the  world 
evince  his  hatred  of  the  doctrine  of  faith,  and  of  all  that  is  said 
about  acceptance  in  Christ,  and  a  right  basis  of  justification  be- 
fore the  eye  of  the  Lawgiver — before  you  admit  the  soundness 
of  his  notions  about  a  safe  and  sufficient  passport  to  eternity — con- 
sider well  whether  eternity  be  at  all  a  matter  of  concern  with  him 
— and  whether  it  is  not  the  entertainment  of  sense  which  gives 
him  all  his  delight,  and  the  business  of  sense  which  gives  him  all 
his  occupation. 

Now,  conceive  the  two  elements  of  eternity  and  time  to  be  so 
revealed  to  his  soul,  as  to  stand  in  their  just  and  naked  proportion 
before  him.  Conceive,  that  the  one  is  seen  advancing  in  nearness 
and  magnitude  towards  him,  and  the  other  as  fast  flitting  into 
evanescence  away.  Conceive  the  scales  so  to  fall  from  his  eyes, 
that,  through  all  the  delusions  which  the  god  of  this  world  spreads 
over  the  surface  of  what  is  present  and  visible,  he  beholds  the 
impressive  mockery  which  death  stamps  upon  every  enjoyment 
that  is  on  this  side  of  it ;  and  feels,  that  if  he  fall  short  of  the  en- 
joyment which  is  on  the  other  side  of  it,  he  is  undone.  Let  all  this 
be  only  mixed  up  with  a  right  sense  of  sin  and  of  the  Saviour — 
and  not  one  moment  will  intervene,  ere,  under  the  curse  and  con- 
sciousness of  the  one,  he  seeks  for  deliverance  from  the  other. 
Let  him  thus  be  made  to  hear  the  footsteps  of  the  last  messenger 
— and  he  will  feel  all  the  urgency  of  a  present  claim  and  of  a 
present  creditor  at  his  door  ;  and  he  will  be  driven  to  the  neces- 
sity of  a  present  settlement,  and  he  will  not  be  so  easily  set  at  rest 
about  the  footing  upon  which  he  stands.  His  search  for  securities, 
will  be  the  search  of  a  man  in  earnest ;  and  a  real  practical  ear- 
nestness is  all  that  we  require — assured,  as  we  are,  that  the  man 
who  is  truly  seeking  for  a  foundation,  will  not  be  satisfied  till  he 


356  shower's  serious  reflections. 

finds  a  solid  one ;  and  that  out  of  the  frail  materials  of  human 
virtue  no  such  foundation  can  be  formed ;  and  that  an  obedience, 
rendered  without  heart,  aud  mixed  up  with  all  the  infirmities  both 
of  forgetfulness  and  pollution,  will  never  quiet  the  conscience  of 
him  who  has  at  all  been  visited  by  a  realizing  sense  of  these 
things.  Thus  it  is,  that  to  consider  our  latter  end  is  to  tread  on 
one  of  the  likeliest  pathways  to  the  Saviour.  Nor  do  we  know 
a  more  effectual  way  of  being  prompted  forward  to  that  place  of 
refuge — where  we  shall  find  a  blood  to  wash  away  our  guilt,  and 
a  righteousness  that  can  never  fail  us.  So  that,  could  we  only 
demonstrate  with  power,  how  short-lived  the  period,  and  how 
tottering  the  basis  of  all  earthly  enjoyments,  we  should  not  despair 
of  soon  finding  the  alarmed  sinner  within  his  secure  resting-place, 
on  that  foundation  which  God  hath  laid  in  Zion. 

There  is  often,  in  the  pencilled  descriptions  of  the  moralist,  a 
kind  of  poetical  and  high-wrought  imagery  thrown  around  the 
chamber  of  death  ;  and  that,  whether  it  be  the  terrors  of  guilt,  or 
the  triumphs  of  conscious  virtue,  which  are  conceived  to  mark 
this  closing  scene  of  our  history  in  the  world.  It  is  well  to  know 
what  the  plain  and  experimental  truth  is,  upon  the  subject.  In 
the  case  of  a  worldly  and  alienated  life,  the  remorse  is  not  nearly 
so  pungent,  the  apprehensions  not  nearly  so  vivid  and  terrifying, 
the  impression  of  future  and  eternal  realities  not  nearly  so  over- 
powering, as  we  are  apt  to  fancy  upon  such  an  occasion.  The 
truth  is,  that  as  it  was  throughout  the  whole  of  his  living,  so  it  is 
generally  in  dying.  He  is  still  engrossed  with  present  and  sensi- 
ble things ;  and  there  is  positively  nothing  in  the  mere  approach 
of  dissolution  that  can  raise  up  the  ascendency  of  faith,  or  render 
him  less  the  slave  of  sight,  and  of  the  body,  than  he  was  before. 
There  is  the  present  pain,  there  is  the  present  thirst,  there  is  the 
present  breathlessness  ;  and  if,  amid  the  tumults  of  his  earthly 
fabric  giving  way,  and  the  last  irregular  movements  of  its  de- 
ranged mechanism  fast  drawing  to  their  cessation,  he  send  for 
the  minister  to  soothe  him  by  his  prayers,  even  he  forms  but  one 
of  the  present  varieties.  There  is  no  actual  going  forth  of  the 
patient's  mind  towards  the  things  which  are  above.  The  faith 
which  he  has  so  long  shut  out,  does  not  now  force  its  entrance 
into  a  bosom,  habituated  to  the  reception  of  no  other  influences, 
than  what  the  world,  and  the  things  of  the  world,  have  so  long 
exercised  over  him.  We  may  see  torpor  upon  such  an  occasion, 
and  call  it  serenity.  We  may  witness  an  uncomplaining  silence, 
and  call  it  resignation.  We  may  never  hear  one  note  of  alarm  to 
drop  from  the  lips  of  the  dying  sufferer  ;  and  therefore  say  that 
he  met  with  Christian  fortitude  his  end.  But  all  these  may  meet 
upon  a  death-bed  ;  and  yet,  the  positive  confidence  of  looking 
forward  to  heaven  as  a  home,  a  positive  rejoicing  in  the  hope  of 
the  glory  of  God,  a  believing,  and  a  knowing,  that  "  when  the 
earthly  house  of  this  tabernacle  is  dissolved,  they  shall  have  a 


shower's  seujous  reflections.  357 

building  of  God,  a  house  not  made  with  hands,  eternal  in  the 
heavens,"  may  never  enter  his  bosom.  There  may  be  the  peace- 
fulness  of  insensibility,  even  while  the  life  of  him  who  has  been  a 
stranger  to  the  faith  of  the  Gospel  is  waning  to  its  extinction — but 
a  peace  mixed  up  with  the  elevation  of  such  prospects  as  these,  is 
never  felt,  apart  from  the  thought  of  Christ  as  "  the  Lord  our 
righteousness."  It  is  altogether  a  romance  to  talk  of  such  antici- 
pations of  triumph,  to  him  who  looks  back  upon  his  own  obedience, 
and  then  looks  forward  to  his  rightful  and  his  challenged  reward. 
If  we  want  our  dying  hour  to  have  the  radiance  of  heaven's  gate 
thrown  over  it — if  we  want,  amid  the  failure  of  expiring  nature, 
to  have  some  firm  footing,  on  which  we  might  strongly  and 
securely  rest ;  there  is  positively  none  other,  but  that  to  which 
the  consideration  of  our  latter  end  should  now  be  urging  us  for- 
ward— and,  therefore,  should  we  call  upon  ourselves  now  to  take 
up  with  Christ  as  our  foundation,  and  to  associate  all  our  confi- 
dence in  God,  with  the  obedience  which  he  has  wrought,  with 
the  ransom  which  he  has  rendered. 

We  cannot  better  enforce  these  solemn  considerations  on  the 
minds  of  our  readers,  with  the  view  of  shutting  them  up  to  the 
faith  that  is  in  Christ,  than  by  referring  them  to  Shower's  "  Seri- 
ous Reflections  on  Time  and  Eternity,"  and  Sir  Matthew  Hale 
"  On  the  consideration  of  our  Latter  End."  In  Shower's  excel- 
lent Treatise,  they  will  find  the  serious  reflections  of  a  mind, 
which,  by  the  habit  of  solemn  consideration,  and  the  exercise  of 
a  vigorous  faith,  habitually  felt  the  power  and  the  reality  of  those 
important  truths,  respecting  which  mankind  in  general  maintain 
an  obstinate,  and  almost  incurable  heedlessness.  There  is  scarcely 
any  form  of  words,  or  any  mode  of  computation,  or  any  point  of 
contrast,  which  he  has  not  employed,  to  give  the  reader  a  vivid 
and  substantive  impression  of  the  littleness  of  Time,  and  the 
greatness  of  Eternity.  The  truths  on  which  he  insists,  are  truths 
of  the  plainest  and  most  elementary  kind  ;  but  thoroughly  aware 
that  the  practical  consideration  of  them  constitutes  the  essence  of 
true  wisdom,  he  endeavors,  by  the  most  forcible  arguments,  and 
the  most  touching  appeals,  and  the  most  persuasive  earnestness, 
to  arrest  mankind  in  their  career  of  thoughtlessness  and  uncon- 
cern, and  to  turn  their  resolute  and  sustained  attention  to  the 
consideration  of  their  latter  end,  and  so  to  number  their  days,  that 
they  may  apply  their  hearts  to  that  highest  of  all  wisdom — a 
preparation  for  the  coming  eternity  ;  and  with  the  real  and  tender 
solicitude  of  men  in  earnest,  lay  to  heart  those  things  which  per- 
tain to  their  everlasting  peace,  ere  time  be  hid  from  their  eyes. 

The  "Consideration  of  our  Latter  End,"  and  the  other  kindred 
pieces  of  Sir  Matthew  Hale,  are  not  only  marked  by  the  same 
solemn  earnestness,  but  possess  all  that  graphic  power  of  thought, 
and  depth  of  experimental  feeling,  which  characterize  the  writings 
of  this  extraordinary  man.     The  character  and  writings  of  this 


358  shower's  serious  reflections. 

great  and  good  man  have  already  been  adverted  to  in  a  former 
Essay  in  this  series  of  "  Select  Christian  Authors,"*  which  pre- 
cludes the  necessity  of  our  entering  into  any  farther  exposition  of 
them.  But  we  cannot  help  observing,  that  if  Sir  Matthew  Hale, 
whose  genius  and  learning  rendered  him  one  of  the  most  distin- 
guished ornaments  of  his  age,  and  whose  character  and  wisdom 
still  associate  him  in  England's  best  remembrances,  with  the 
noblest  of  her  worthies,  counted  it  a  wisdom  superior  to  all  hu- 
man learning,  to  consider  his  latter  end — and  if,  amidst  the  nu- 
merous and  important  avocations  of  that  high  official  station 
which  he  occupied,  rendered  still  more  arduous  and  difficult,  by 
the  anarchy  and  confusion  of  that  revolutionary  period  in  which 
he  lived,  this  good  man  was  not  unmindful  to  address  those  moni- 
tory lessons  to  his  countrymen,  which  we  now  present  anew,  as 
salutary  admonitions  to  the  present  generation, — then  have  we  a 
testimony  to  the  worth  and  surpassing  excellence  of  this  wisdom, 
above  all  the  acquisitions  of  science  and  philosophy,  which  cannot 
be  disregarded,  without  incurring  the  imputation  of  folly.  Science 
and  human  learning  we  hold  in  high  estimation,  and  let  them  be 
diffused  throughout  every  corner  of  our  land  ;  but  what  we  affirm 
is,  that  they  do  not  meet  the  necessities  of  man's  moral  constitu- 
tion. The  man  of  science  may  be  rich  in  all  these  acquisitions, 
and  yet  be  destitute  of  that  knowledge  which  forms  a  right  prep- 
aration for  the  duties  of  time,  or  a  sound  preparation  for  the  glo- 
ries of  eternity  ;  while  the  humble  peasant,  whose  mind  has  never 
been  illuminated  with  science,  may  be  illustrious  in  wisdom  of  a 
far  higher  order,  and,  by  turning  the  consideration  of  his  latter 
end  to  its  right  and  practical  use,  may  have  attained  to  that  knowl- 
edge in  which  the  apostle  determined  alone  to  glory,  "  the  knowl- 
edge of  Jesus  Christ  and  him  crucified." 

It  is  the  great  design  of  such  a  consideration,  to  lead  us  to  that 
Gospel  which  is  freely  offered  to  all.  But  though  the  Gospel  be 
offered  freely,  it  only  becomes  ours  by  our  receiving  it  freely  ; 
and  seldom  is  it  so  received  by  him  who,  after  being  laid  on  the 
bed  of  his  last  sickness,  has  still  a  Saviour  to  seek,  instead  of  a 
Saviour  to  enjoy.  The  evil  heart  of  unbelief,  which  he  has  cher- 
ished through  life,  cleaves  to  him,  and  keeps  its  hold  till  the  last 
hour  of  it :  and,  therefore,  never  does  the  mind  entertain  a  delu- 
sion more  ruinous,  never  is  eternity  placed  on  a  more  desperate 
stake,  than  by  those  who  put  away  from  them  now  the  offers  of 
salvation,  and  think  that  then  they  shall  have  it  for  the  taking.  Jt 
is  the  part,  then,  of  all  to  look  forthwith  and  earnestly  to  the  Sa- 
viour— to  contemplate  him  in  his  revealed  offices — to  make  a  real 
and  intelligent  work  of  closing  with  him — to  receive  him  as  their 
atonement — to  render  allegiance  to  him  as  their  Lord  and  their 
Proprietor — and  submit  themselves  unto  Him,  that  he  might  rule 

*  Judge  Hale  on  the  Knowledge  of  Christ  Crucified,  and  other  Divine  Contempla- 
tions, with  an  Introductory  Essay,  by  the  Rev.  David  Young. 


shower's  serious  reflections.  359 

in  them  by  his  Spirit,  and  over  them  by  his  Law.  Whether  they 
be  the  unconverted,  who  have  yet  to  lay  hold  of  Christ,  or  the 
already  converted,  whose  business  it  is  to  keep  that  hold — we 
know  not  how  the  consideration  of  their  latter  end  can  be  turned 
more  substantially  to  the  purposes  of  wisdom  and  of  true  under- 
standing, than  by  leading  them  supremely  to  prize,  and  immedi- 
ately to  acquire,  that  knowledge  of  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord,  which 
is  life  everlasting 


INTRODUCTORY  ESSAY 

TO    THE 

CHRISTIAN'S  DEFENCE  AGAINST  INFIDELITY; 

CONSISTING   OF, 

1.  LESLIE'S  SHORT  AND  EASY  METHOD  WITH  THE  DEISTS. 

2.  LYTTLETON'S  OBSERVATIONS  ON  ST.  PAUL. 

3.  DODDRIDGE'S  EVIDENCES  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

4.  BATES  ON  THE  DIVINITY  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  RELIGION. 

5.  OWEN  ON  THE  SELF-EVIDENCING  LIGHT  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

6.  BAXTER  ON  THE  DANGER  OF  MAKING  LIGHT  OF  CHRIST. 


There  are  several  ways  in  which  a  man,  who  practises  the  art 
of  divination,  might  try  to  make  good  his  pretensions  to  this  su- 
pernatural endowment.  He  might  do  so  by  attempting  to  pro- 
nounce on  the  kind  and  the  quantity  of  money  which  I  have  about 
my  person.  He  might  pass  a  confident  utterance  on  a  matter 
that  is  hidden  from  every  human  eye  but  my  own,  even  on  the 
number  and  the  character  of  those  pieces  of  coin  which  I  am 
carrying  about  with  me, — and  this  description  of  his  may  be  rig- 
idly true,  in  all  its  varied  particulars, — and  at  different  times  may 
he  make  distinct  and  repeated  trials  of  the  same  kind,  and  succeed 
in  every  one  of  them.  And  surely  it  is  conceivable,  that  these 
examples  of  an  unfailing  coincidence,  between  what  he  says,  and 
what  I  myself  know  of  the  subject,  may  be  so  striking,  and  so 
multiplied,  and  so  obviously  free  of  all  the  symptoms  and  all  the 
preparations  of  jugglery,  as  to  leave  upon  my  mind,  not  merely  a 
firm,  but  also  a  most  just  and  rational  conviction,  that  the  man  is 
what  he  pretends  to  be ;  that  there  is  a  reach  of  discernment 
about  him,  beyond  all  that  is  known  of  the  powers  or  the  princi- 
ples of  nature;  that  in  fact,  he  has  established  himself  to  be  a  mi- 
raculous personage,  and  by  evidence,  too,  of  such  a  kind,  as,  with 
:\  man  of  sober  and  enlightened  judgment,  might  be  altogether 
irresistible. 

Now,  it  is  to  be  remarked  of  such  evidence,  that,  in  the  main 
strength  of  it,  and  in  the  proper  and  original  impression  of  it,  it  is 
addressed  exclusively  to  myself.  I  may  make  known  to  others 
the  whole  history  of  this  wonderful  transaction.     I  may  report  to 


THE    CHRISTIAN'S    DEFENCE    AGAINST    INFIDELITY.  361 

them  all  the  cases  of  successful  divination  which  have  been  ac- 
complished upon  me.  But  still  the  evidence  of  these  cases  has  to 
pass  through  the  intervening  medium  of  my  testimony.  Before 
that  others  can  feel  the  same  power  of  evidence  with  myself,  they 
must  be  made  to  undergo  the  same  treatment :  or  the  same  divi- 
nation must  be  practised  successively  and  individually  upon  each 
of  them.  They  may  choose  to  discredit  my  testimony.  They 
may  distrust  my  powers  of  memory  and  observation.  They  may 
suspect  a  collusion  between  me  and  an  artful  pretender.  They 
may  look  upon  me  as  a  man  either  of  dishonest  purpose,  or  of 
diseased  imagination.  They  may  "muster  up  a  thousand  possibil- 
ities, to  ward  away  from  them  a  conviction,  which  I  know  and 
am  assured  to  be  a  just  one.  And  thus  it  is  that  I  may,  on  the 
one  hand,  be  surrounded  by  the  incredulity  of  all  my  fellows,  and 
I  may  be  assailed,  in  every  direction,  by  the  imputations  of  false- 
hood or  fanaticism  ;  and  yet,  with  the  personal  access  I  have  had 
to  an  evidence  to  which  none  of  my  acquaintances  have  been  ad- 
mitted, and  with  a  proper  confidence  in  the  soundness  of  my  own 
recollections,  and  with  the  sense  of  a  single-minded  integrity 
throughout  the  whole  of  this  business,  I  may,  on  the  other  hand, 
though  accosted  at  every  turn  by  the  ridicule  and  the  reproaches 
of  my  acquaintances,  be  fully  warranted  to  place  my  immovable 
confidence  in  him  with  whom  I  have  held  the  intercourse  of  all 
these  intimate  and  peculiar  communications. 

But  let  us  now  vary  the  supposition,  and  conceive  that  our  ex- 
traordinary personage  embarks  his  pretensions  on  another  and  a 
higher  species  of  divination  ;  that,  instead  of  attempting  to  divine 
the  money  which  is  in  my  pocket,  he  attempts  to  divine  the 
thoughts  which  are  in  my  heart ;  that,  laying  claim  to  the  wond- 
rous prerogative  of  supernaturally  knowing  what  is  in  man,  he 
offers  to  scrutinize  my  mind,  and  to  read  to  me  the  varied  char- 
acters which,  in  the  shape  of  opinion,  and  desire,  and  ruling  pas- 
sion, and  prevailing  infirmity  of  temper,  stand  engraven  in  its 
chamber  of  imagery ;  that  he  unfolds  to  me  the  workings  of  my 
own  soul,  and  lays  before  me  a  picture  of  the  inner  man,  that  can 
be  vividly  recognized  by  the  eye  of  my  own  conscience;  that  he 
proves  to  me,  how  this  little  world  of  self,  with  all  its  affections 
and  its  tendencies,  which  stand  so  hidden  from  general  observa- 
tion, by  a  thick  and  an  impalpable  veil,  is  altogether  naked  and 
open  before  him  ;  that  he  makes  me  perceive,  by  his  insight  into 
the  thoughts  and  intents  of  my  heart,  how  he  is  indeed  a  most 
skilful  and  a  most  enlightened  discerner  ;  that,  by  his  piercing  in- 
spection into  the  secrecies  of  my  bosom,  he  can  so  divide  asunder 
my  soul  and  spirit,  as  to  make  every  one  of  them  manifest  in  his 
sight.  Why,  is  it  not  conceivable,  that  in  this  way,  too,  there 
may  be  multiplied  upon  me  the  instances  of  a  penetration  far 
above  the  powers  of  humanity ;  that  every  new  case  of  such  a 
divination  may  serve  to  strengthen  mv  confidence  in  him  who 

46 


362  the  christian's  defence  against  infidelity. 

performs  it;  and  that,  at  length,  I  may  be  so  overpowered  by  the 
evidence  which  he  thus  brings  to  bear  upon  me,  as  to  give  my  full 
consent  to  all  his  pretensions,  and  to  embark  my  every  prospect, 
and  my  every  determination,  on  his  authority,  as  a  messenger 
from  God  ? 

And  yet,  when  I  do  so,  I  do  it  upon  the  strength  of  evidence, 
directed  individually  to  myself.  I  cannot  make  another  man  the 
partaker  of  this  evidence.  I  cannot  possibly  put  him  upon  that 
station  of  advantage  which  I  occupy.  I  cannot  translate  into  his 
bosom  my  own  direct  and  immediate  consciousness  of  the  move- 
ments which  are  going  on  in  my  bosom  ;  nor  can  I  furnish 
him  with  a  window  of  observation,  through  which  he  may  note 
the  coincidence  between  those  divinations  which  have  been  at- 
tempted on  my  mind,  and  my  mind,  which  is  the  subject  of  these 
divinations.  I  am  the  only  man  living  who  can  be  made  directly 
to  perceive  this  coincidence,  and  to  me  exclusively  and  appro- 
priately belongs  the  main  strength  of  the  evidence  that  is  founded 
upon  it.  There  lies  an  impassable  barrier  between  me  and  my 
next-door  neighbor,  in  virtue  of  which  I  find  it  impossible  to  make 
a  full  or  an  adequate  communication  of  this  evidence  to  him. 
There  may  be  divinations  conceived,  where  the  subject  of  them 
is  equally  accessible  to  all  men.  But  the  peculiarity  of  the  divina- 
tion that  I  am  now  insisting  on,  is,  that  the  subject  of  it  is  access- 
ible only  to  the  individual  on  whom  it  is  practised.  Ere  my 
neighbor  can  possess  the  evidence  which  it  affords,  he  must  be 
made  the  subject  of  a  distinct  divination.  Before  this  takes  place, 
he  has  nothing  to  rest  upon  but  my  testimony,  which  he  may  re- 
ject as  false,  or  which  he  may  deride  as  fanciful,  or  which  he  may 
utterly  despise,  as  symptomatic  of  folly  and  of  superstitious  weak- 
ness. Still,  however,  in  the  face  of  all  this,  I  may  obstinately  ad- 
here to  my  own  conviction,  and  be  right  in  doing  so.  My  con- 
temptuous neighbor  has  no  access  to  the  materials  upon  which  my 
judgment  is  founded.  He  cannot  bring  himself  into  a  state  of 
contiguity  with  my  mind,  nor  obtain  such  a  view  of  its  workings, 
as  to  see  how  good  the  evidence  is  that  I  have  for  my  conviction ; 
nor,  until  he  has  forced  his  way  within  the  penetralia  of  the  inner 
chamber,  will  I,  with  a  right  sense  of  my  integrity,  and  a  right 
confidence  in  my  judgment,  hold  him  entitled  to  pronounce  it  a  bad 
evidence.  I  alone  have  access  to  the  depositions  of  my  own  con- 
sciousness. And  I  have  faith  in  their  veracity.  And  I  can  judge 
of  the  accordancy  between  them,  and  the  divinations  of  the  man 
who  calls  himself  a  prophet.  And  I  may  see  it  to  be  an  accord- 
ancy so  close,  and  so  minutely  variegated,  and  so  often  exempli- 
fied, and  so  sustained  throughout  all  the  successions  of  my  expe- 
rience and  my  history,  that,  believing  it  to  be  miraculous,  I  may 
say,  and  say  with  justness,  that  surely  God  is  in  him  of  a  truth. 
And  thus  may  I  exhibit,  not  merely  an  inflexible,  but  a  sound  and 
philosophically   consistent  faith,   even   in  circumstances    where, 


THE    CHRISTIAN  S    DEFENCE    AGAINST    INFIDELITY.  363 

abandoned  by  the  sympathy  of  all  my  fellows,  I  am  traduced  as 
a  hypocrite,  or  reviled  as  an  enthusiast. 

There  is  something  to  confirm  all  this  in  Scripture  history. 
Our  Saviour,  in  the  course  of  His  conversation  with  the  woman 
of  Samaria,  achieved  upon  her  a  work  of  divination.  He  read 
to  her  a  passage  out  of  her  present  and  her  by-gone  history ;  and 
she  was  so  far  impressed  with  the  circumstance,  as  to  say,  "Sir, 
I  perceive  that  thou  art  a  prophet."  She  repeated  the  circum- 
stance to  her  countrymen ;  and  it  is  recorded,  that  some  of  them 
bore  such  respect  to  her  testimony,  that  they  believed  on  Jesus, 
u  for  the  saying  of  the  woman,  which  testified,  He  told  me  all  that 
ever  I  did."  But  though  some,  not  all ;  for  it  is  further  said,  that 
"many  more  believed  because  of  his  own  word."  True,  it  is  not 
said  that  this  word  carried  the  same  kind  of  evidence  to  them, 
that  it  did  to  the  woman  of  Samaria.  It  is  not  said,  that,  disbe- 
lieving her  testimony,  they  were  at  length  made  to  believe,  by 
means  of  a  similar  divination  practised  upon  themselves.  But  we 
may,  at  least,  gather  from  the  passage,  that  the  evidence  on  which 
their  faith  rested  did  not  lie  in  any  external  miracle.  This  is  not 
what  they  alleged  as  the  ground  of  their  faith.  But  they  "  said  to 
the  woman,  Now  we  believe,  not  because  of  thy  saying ;  for  we 
have  heard  him  ourselves,  and  know  that  this  is  indeed  the  Christ, 
the  Saviour  of  the  world." 

But  any  deficiency  of  information  in  this  passage,  is  amply 
made  up  in  other  passages.  The  miracle  of  tongues,  for  instance, 
held  out  to  the  notice  of  the  world,  by  the  first  teachers  of  Chris- 
tianity, should  have  compelled  the  attention  of  all  whom  they  ad- 
dressed, to  the  subject-matter  of  their  testimony.  A  few  moments 
of  serious  and  candid  examination,  would  have  convinced  them 
of  such  a  reality  in  this  exhibition,  as  entitled  the  first  preachers 
of  the  Gospel  to  a  further  and  a  respectful  hearing.  But  there 
were  many  in  those  days  who  wanted  this  seriousness  and  this 
candor ;  and  they  passed  a  rejection  so  summary  upon  the  mes- 
sage that  was  proposed,  that  they  would  not  even  listen  to  the 
terms  of  it ;  and  they  put  it  away  from  them  at  the  very  threshold 
of  its  earliest  intimations ;  and  we  are,  accordingly,  told  by  the 
apostle,  that  the  gift  of  tongues,  instead  of  exciting  their  inquiry, 
excited  their  ridicule,  insomuch,  that  they  pronounced  those  who 
exercised  it  to  be  mad ;  and  we  also  read  of  certain  despisers, 
who,  upon  the  very  same  exhibition,  said,  mocking,  that  "  these 
men  are  full  of  new  wine  ;"  and  thus  it  is  that  they  persisted  in 
their  unbelief,  and  wondered,  and  perished.  Now,  the  way  in 
which  we  understand  the  gift  of  tongues  to  have  been  a  sijrn  unto 
them.  is.  that  it  sealed  their  condemnation.  It  convicted  them  of 
a  dishonest  partiality  on  the  side  of  falsehood.  It  made  the  Gos- 
pel the  savor  of  death  unto  death  unto  them.  The  sign  of 
tongues  was  a  sign  which  they  spake  against ;  and  this  wilful, 
perverse,  unfair,  and,  at  all  hazards,  determined  opposition,  drew 


364  the  christian's  defence  against  infidelity. 

upon  them  the  fulfilment  of  such  sayings,  as,  that  unless  those 
works  had  been  done  among  them  which  had  never  been  done 
before,  they  had  not  had  sin  ;  and  that  it  would  be  more  tolerable 
for  Sodom  and  Gomorrah  in  the  day  of  judgment,  than  for  those 
who  witnessed  such  miracles,  but  who  so  loved  the  darkness 
rather  than  the  light,  as  to  resist  the  impression  of  them. 

Thus  much  for  those  who  believed  not.  And  as  to  those  who 
believed,  it  does  not  appear  to  us  that  it  was  the  miracle  of 
tongues,  or  indeed  any  external  miracle  whatever,  which  wrought 
in  them  the  saving  faith  of  the  New  Testament.  A  previous 
miracle  might,  in  many  cases,  have  been  the  instrument  by  which 
their  attention  was  gained :  but  we  think  that  the  evidence  upon 
which  their  conversion  hinged,  beamed  upon  their  minds  from 
the  subject-matter  of  the  testimony.  It  was  in  the  act  of  listen- 
ing to  what  is  called  the  prophecy,  or,  (taking  this  term  accord- 
ing to  its  undoubted  sense  in  many  passages  of  Scripture,)  it  was 
in  the  act  of  listening  to  the  exposition  of  Christian  doctrine,  that 
they  felt  the  impression  of  that  evidence  which  we  have  already 
insisted  on — even  the  evidence  of  such  a  divination  as  was  beyond 
all  that  could  be  accomplished  by  the  sagacity  of  man.  The 
truth  of  what  the  apostles  told  them  was  made  manifest  to  their 
consciences.  What  their  Christian  teachers  said  they  were,  they 
felt  themselves  to  be ;  and  they  recognized  the  coincidence,  and 
they  were  arrested  by  it.  They  gave  them  credit  for  a  super- 
natural commission,  when  they  discerned  such  a  reach  of  pene- 
tration into  the  secrecy  of  their  bosoms,  as  they  judged  to  be 
supernatural.  And  the  evidence  they  thus  obtained,  was  not 
diluted  by  its  transmission  upon  a  vehicle  of  testimony,  from  the 
experience  of  one  man  to  the  hearing  of  another  man.  All  who 
believed  shared  in  the  same  experience.  Each  of  them  was 
made  the  subject  of  a  separate  divination.  Each  carried  home 
the  word  spoken,  and  found  it  totally  with  all  that  he  perceived 
of  his  own  character.  The  evidence  came  with  the  whole  force 
of  its  powerful  and  primitive  impression  upon  every  conscience. 
And  we  think  that  nothing  more  needs  to  be  said,  in  order  to  un- 
derstand the  kind  of  influence  by  which,  when  the  first  teachers 
prophesied,  or  expounded  their  message  and  their  doctrine,  "  and 
there  came  in  one  that  believed  not,  or  one  unlearned,  he  was 
convinced  of  all,  he  was  judged  of  all :  and  thus  were  the  secrets 
of  his  heart  made  manifest;  and  so,  falling  down  on  his  face,  he 
worshipped  God,  and  reported  that  God  was  in  them  of  a  truth." 

But  these  gifted  teachers  of  our  faith  not  only  spoke  to  the 
men  of  their  own  age,  they  also  wrote  for  the  men  of  other  ages. 
They  have  left  behind  them  an  enduring  memorial  of  their  doc- 
trine and  their  testimony.  They  have  graven  it  on  an  imperish- 
able record;  and  we  know  not  a  more  deeply  interesting  ques- 
tion, within  the  whole  compass  of  Theology,  than — Whether, 
while  the  word  of  the  apostles  is  thus  transmitted  by  writing,  the 


the  christian's  defence  against  infidelity.  365 

evidence  which  lay  in  that  word  at  its  first  and  its  oral  delivery, 
is  transmitted  along  with  it  to  succeeding  generations  ?  May 
we,  in  the  reading  of  that  word,  gather  the  same  evidence  for  its 
truth,  which  the  unbelievers,  and  the  unlearned  in  the  apostolic 
age,  did  in  the  hearing  of  it?  In  one  short  sentence,  Has  this 
evidence  descended?  Has  it  been  actually  translated  into  the 
pages  of  the  Bible  ?  Does  this  book  stand  to  us  in  the  place  of 
its  human  composers,  who  have  long  ere  now  been  consigned  to 
the  silence  of  the  grave  ?  Can  it  do  by  itself  now,  what  they 
personally,  and  of  themselves,  did  then?  Can  it  evince  such  a 
power  of  divination  into  the  secrecies  of  the  heart,  as  to  bear, 
upon  its  own  forehead,  the  attestation  of  God  being  in  it  of  a 
truth  ?  An  unlettered  man  of  the  present  day,  knows  nothing  of 
its  external  evidence.  He  is  an  utter  stranger  to  the  erudition 
and  the  history  of  the  eighteen  hundred  years  which  have  elapsed, 
since  the  first  promulgation  of  Christianity  in  the  world.  It  is  all 
a  dark  and  an  unknown  interval  to  him.  Nor  can  he  fetch  a 
single  argument,  for  the  establishment  of  his  faith,  from  across  an 
abyss  which  looks  so  obscure  and  so  fathomless.  Now  the  ques- 
tion is — May  he  fetch  any  such  argument  from  the  book  itself? 
When,  in  the  act  of  reading  it,  the  word  is  brought  nigh  unto  him, 
is  there  anything  within  it  by  which  it  can  announce  its  own  au- 
thority, and  hold  out,  to  a  simple  and  untaught  reader,  the  light 
of  its  own  evidence?  Does  the  word  written  inherit  all  the 
powers  of  the  word  spoken?  Does  there  emanate  from  the  doc- 
trine, as  recorded  by  the  apostles,  that  virtue  to  arrest,  and  to 
carry  the  conviction,  which  actually  did  emanate  from  the  same 
doctrine,  as  told  by  the  apostles?  Insomuch,  that  the  Bible  shall 
be  not  merely  the  messenger  of  its  own  contents,  but  shall  also  be 
the  messenger  of  its  own  credentials ;  that  wherever  it  goes,  it 
shall  bear  abroad  with  it  the  legible  and  the  satisfying  inscription 
of  its  own  truth ;  that  by  the  light  which  beams  from  its  pages,  it 
shall  make  known  the  celestial  character  which  it  wears,  and  the 
celestial  origin  from  which  it  sprung ;  that  it  shall  emit,  upon 
every  side  of  it,  the  lesson  of  its  rightful  authority ;  and  that, 
though  it  borrowed  not  one  particle  of  aid  from  the  skill  and  the 
scholarship  of  its  controversial  defenders,  it  shall  be  able  to  speak 
for  itself,  to  find  its  way  even  among  the  humblest  of  our  cottages, 
to  reclaim,  and  to  convince,  and  to  enlighten  their  darkest  popu- 
lation, and  to  put  the  stamp  of  a  sound  and  a  clear  intelligence 
on  all  the  discipleship  which  it  earns  among  them. 

We  do  not  see  how  we  could  have  abridged  our  observations 
at  any  former  point  of  this  argument ;  and,  after  all,  have  we  only 
arrived  on  the  margin  of  a  vast  and  untrodden  field,  and  feel  our- 
selves placed  on  the  mere  threshold  of  a  subject  far  too  big  and 
too  unwieldly  for  the  present  Essay.  We  will  not  attempt  the 
impossibility  of  entertaining  the  question  we  have  just  now  started, 
in  such  a  way  as  to  meet  the  every  doubt,  and  to  pursue  the  every 


ELITY. 


360  the  christian's  defence  against  infidelit 

illustration,  and  at  length  to  bestow  upon  our  argument  its  com- 
plete and  conclusive  establishment.  We  firmly  believe,  that  there 
ts  no  one  position  in  Theology,  which  can  be  more  strongly  and 
more  philosophically  sustained,  than  the  self-evidencing  power  of 
the  Bible.  For  a  full  and  satisfactory  exposition  of  this  subject, 
we  must  refer  our  readers  to  Dr.  Owen's  Treatise,  in  the  present 
volume.  ''On  the  Self-Evidencing  Light  and  Power  of  the  Scrip- 
tures," and  all  we  shall  do,  at  present,  is  just  to  bring  forward  as 
much,  in  the  way  of  remark,  as  we  have  room  for,  on  the  impor- 
tant point  which  has  been  suggested. 

When  this  evidence  first  dawns  on  the  mind  of  an  inquirer, 
there  is  one  striking  point  of  accordancy  which  generally  offers 
itself  to  his  contemplation  ;  even  that  accordancy  which  subsists 
between  the  inward  experience  of  his  own  heart,  and  the  outward 
description  of  it  that  is  laid  before  him  in  the  Bible  ;  and  is,  in  fact, 
like  the  exact  correspondence  which  obtains  between  the  cipher 
and  the  thing  to  be  deciphered.  There  is  no  one  announcement 
which  the  Bible  maintains  more  steadily,  and  which  it  keeps  by 
more  perseveringly,  and  which,  in  opposition  to  all  the  wisdom  of 
this  world,  and  to  all  the  delusion  and  vanity  of  the  people  who 
live  in  it,  is  it  ever  holding  forth  more  fearlessly,  and  more  unre- 
lentingly, than  the  utter  alienation  and  worthlessness  of  man  in 
reference  to  God.  It  makes  the  entire  corruption  of  our  species 
the  basis  of  its  system.  It  never  either  questions  or  qualifies  this 
position ;  but  takes  it  up,  and  proceeds  upon  it ;  and  we  recog- 
nize it  at  every  turn  as  the  great  and  the  pervading  element  of 
Christianity.  And  when  a  man,  unwarped  from  all  the  influences 
by  which  he  has  hitherto  been  blinded,  looks  inwardly  upon  him- 
self, and  perceives  that  it  is  really  so, — when  enabled  to  pierce 
his  way  through  all  those  plausibilities  of  character  which  have 
hitherto  lulled  him  into  a  deceitful  security,  he  is  made  to  see  how 
utterly  devoid  he  is  of  what  may  be  called  the  main  or  the  ele- 
mental principle  of  righteousness,  even  a  principle  of  allegiance 
to  God, — when  it  becomes  evident  to  him,  that  at  the  very  moment 
that  the  virtues  of  instinct  or  of  natural  endowment,  throw  a  lus- 
tre of  moral  accomplishment  around  him,  and  draw  upon  his  per- 
son the  eye  and  the  homage  of  society,  he  is  neither  thinking  of 
the  Gm,|  who  made  him,  nor  making  His  will  the  standard  of  obe- 
(lirnce;  but,  with  the  full  bent  of  his  affections  to  the  creature 
rather  than  to  the  Creator,  he  is  in  fact  making  the  world  that  di- 
vinity to  which  he  renders  the  incense  of  a  perpetual  offering; 
and  withholding  his  heart  from  Him  who  claims  the  ascendency 
over  all  its  desires,  and  giving  it  up  in  unreserved  devotedness  to 
the  idols  of  sense  and  of  time.  Why,  when  he  thinks  of  this  as 
the  very  turning  point  of  the  controversy  between  God  and  His 
creatures;  that  to  do  this  is  to  trample  on  the  authority  of  the  first 
and  the  greatest  commandment;  that  let  him  be  kind  or  amiable, 
or  generous  or  upright,  there  is  that  universal  attribute  of  the  car- 


THE    CHRISTIAN'S    DEFENCE    AGAINST    INFIDELITY.  367 

nal  mind,  even  enmity  against  God,  which  spreads  itself  over  the 
whole  system  of  his  feelings,  and  deeply  infuses  the  ve.'*y  best  of 
them  with  the  guilt  and  the  malignity  of  sin, — when  he  contrasts 
his  forgetfulness  of  God,  and  his  utter  indifference  to  God,  with  the 
weight  of  those  unnumbered  obligations  that  he  owes  to  Him  who 
called  him  into  being,  and  who  enriched  him  with  all  his  faculties, 
and  who  gives  him  every  breath,  and  whose  right  hand  upholds 
him  continually, — when  thus  enabled  to  descry,  through  the  mists 
of  a  pride  that  is  now  mortified,  and  the  false  brilliancies  of  an  im- 
agination that  is  now  arrested,  how,  with  a  heart  withheld  from 
God,  he  in  fact  has  been  carrying  about  with  him,  from  the  first 
infancy  of  his  recollection,  the  very  seed  and  principle  of  rebellion 
against  his  Maker, — when  he  comes  to  see  all  this,  and,  further- 
more, to  see  how  the  same  lesson,  which  his  now  enlightened  ex- 
perience is  reading  to  him,  in  characters  so  distinct  and  so  vigo- 
rous in  his  own  person,  stands  engraven  as  vigorously  and  as  dis- 
tinctly on  the  record  of  Scripture  ;  how  the  very  thing  has  all 
along  been  most  firmly,  and  in  the  face  of  this  world's  resistance, 
stated  in  his  Bible,  which  is  now  opening  upon  his  conviction,  from 
the  clearer  view  that  he  now  takes  of  the  lineaments  of  his  own 
heart.  Is  it,  after  all  this,  to  be  looked  at  as  a  mystery,  that  he 
should  proffer  his  respect  to  a  volume  which  tells  him  what  no 
other  volume  ever  told  him,  but  which  he  now  sees,  by  his  own 
discernment,  to  be  true  ;  that  he  should  feel  constrained  towards 
that  book  in  which  he  has  found  such  an  exact  image  of  himself, 
as  is  not  to  be  found  within  the  whole  range  of  human  literature  ;  or 
when  an  utterance  of  the  Bible  thus  meets  with  its  counterpart  in 
his  own  bosom,  and  it  be  an  utterance  which  nature  never  could 
have  prompted,  because  revolting  to  all  the  pride  and  to  all  the 
sagacity  of  nature,  shall  he  be  any  longer  suspended  in  doubt  or 
in  amazement,  though  so  convinced  and  so  judged,  and  with  the 
secrets  of  his  heart  so  made  manifest,  his  belief  should  at  length 
be  overpowered  by  this  and  similar  instances  of  such  a  wondrous 
divination  ? 

There  is  no  room  for  dilating  on  other  instances,  or  for  describ- 
ing the  whole  compass  of  Scripture,  with  the  view  of  pointing  out 
the  every  passage  from  which  there  glances,  on  the  reader  whose 
eyes  have  been  opened,  this  evidence  of  divination.  We  cannot 
show  how  the  very  offer  of  such  a  Saviour  as  can  alone  quell  the 
apprehensions  of  sinful  nature,  and  makes  the  conscience  feel  at 
peace  with  God,  is  virtually  in  itself  an  act  of  divination — or  how 
the  distaste  of  nature  for  the  truths  of  the  Gospel,  a  distaste  asserted 
in  the  records  of  the  Gospel  itself,  forms  another  striking  example 
of  divination — or  how  the  way  in  which  this  distaste  is  made  to 
give  place  to  a  spiritual  relish,  and  a  spiritual  discernment  of  these 
things,  tallies  with  other  verses  of  the  Bible,  and  goes  to  swell 
and  to  multiply  the  evidences  of  divination — or  how  the  actual 
revolution,  felt  by  every  believer  whose  heart  is  now  open  to  the 


368  the  christian's  defence  against  infidelity. 

charm  and  the  significancy  of  that  which  he  at  one  time  recoiled 
from  in  nauseous  antipathy,  forms  an  argument  hereof  a  weightier 
character  than  that  of  divination.  We  cannot  venture  at  present 
on  so  wide  a  field  :  the  evidence  is  in  fact  too  abundant  for  it. 
The  number  of  verses  is  too  great  which  exhibits  a  harmony  be- 
tween the  doctrines  of  the  Bible  and  the  findings  of  experience. 
But  it  may  at  least  be  remarked,  that  it  is  an  evidence  out  of  which 
something  may  be  gathered  to  meet  the  case  of  every  inquirer. 
For  first,  if  he  be  in  a  state  previous  to  conversion,  this  evidence 
accumulates  upon  him  by  every  statement  he  finds  about  the  dead- 
ness  and  the  darkness,  and  the  dread  of  his  alienated  bosom  in 
reference  to  God — and  he  feels  it  to  agree  with  the  testimony  of 
his  own  conscience — and  he  sees  in  the  Bible  the  reflection  of  his 
own  most  intimate  experience,  as  it  tells  him  that  he  is  living  with- 
out hope  and  without  God  in  the  world,  and  that  a  moral  impo- 
tency  has  got  hold  of  him,  and  that  he  cannot  render,  in  his  own 
strength,  a  spiritual  obedience,  and  that  there  lies  upon  him  the 
utter  impossibility  of  conceiving  love  to  God,  whom,  without  the 
faith  of  the  New  Testament,  he  ever  will  look  upon  as  a  distant 
and  inaccessible  Lawgiver.  And  secondly,  if  he  be  on  the  eve  of 
conversion,  he  finds  out  other  points  of  accordancy.  He  looks  at 
the  Gospel,  and  sees  there  what  he  can  see  nowhere  else — a  some- 
thing to  tranquillize  the  fears  of  guilt,  to  meet  its  necessities,  to 
bring  the  sinner,  who  by  nature  stands  afar  ofF,  near  unto  God — 
and  as  he  feels  this  wondrous  virtue  of  the  peace-speaking  blood, 
he  believes  that  an  application  so  suitable  to  man,  could  only  pro- 
ceed from  Him  who  knew  what  was  in  man.  And,  finally,  if  he 
be  already  converted,  this  evidence  strengthens  upon  him  every 
day  ;  and  pours  a  growing  light  upon  his  path  ;  and  when  he  looks 
at  his  Bible,  he  sees  that  it  contains  within  its  pages  an  exact  trans- 
cript of  his  own  feelings  and  his  own  exercises;  and  as  he  looks 
at  his  own  heart  he  sees  the  intimations  of  the  Bible  realized  upon 
all  its  movements  ;  and  the  points  of  accordancy  between  the  out- 
ward die  and  the  inward  mould,  he  perceives  to  be  far  too  minute 
and  manifold  and  inscrutable  to  have  been  divined  by  the  sagacity 
of  man — and  the  conviction  meets  upon  him  with  every  new  step 
in  the  progress  of  his  history — and  just  as  the  Christians  of  old 
believed  that  God  was  in  the  apostles  of  a  truth,  so  does  a  Chris- 
tian of  this  day  believe  that  God  is  in  the  Bible,  which  the  apostles 
have  left  behind  them — and  to  the  truth  of  this  belief,  all  the 
thoughts,  and  all  the  transactions  of  his  inner  man,  lend  their  tes- 
timony— as  he  feels  within  himself  the  conflict  of  two  opposing 
principles,  and  the  habitual  prevalence  of  one  of  them  ;  or  as  he 
feels  within  himself  the  faith  which  worketh  by  love,  and  the  love 
which  yieldeth  obedience ;  or  as  he  feels  within  himself  the  pro- 
cess of  sanctification  ;  or  as  he  feels  within  himself  the  peace  and 
the  joy,  and  the  spirit  of  adoption,  which  sounds  to  the  world  an 
unintelligible  mystery  ;  or,  as  he  finds  on  his  own  person  the  ful- 


THE    CHRISTIAN'S    DEFENCE    AGAINST    INFIDELITY.  369 

filment  of  prayer,  and  the  fruits  of  the  Spirit,  and  a  growing  con- 
formity to  the  example  of  Christ,  and  a  growing  meetness  for  the 
inheritance  of  a  blissful  eternity. 

But  we  will  not  oppress  ourselves  with  the  magnitude  of  this 
argument,  by  attempting  to  dispose  of  it,  in  all  its  parts,  and  in  all 
its  illustrations,  within  the  compass  of  an  Essay;  and  we  shall 
close  this  part  of  our  argument  by  the  three  following  remarks  : — 

1.  This  argument,  so  far  from  precluding  the  testimony  of  the 
Spirit,  is  the  very  argument  which  the  Spirit  brings  before  us  in 
the  exercise  of  his  legitimate  functions.  He  tells  us  of  nothing 
that  is  out  of  the  field  of  revelation,  or  out  of  the  field  of  human 
experience.  The  telescope  does  not  add  a  single  character  to  the 
distant  landscape,  but  brings  home  to  our  discernment  all  the  act- 
ual and  antecedent  characters  which  existed  in  it.  In  like  man- 
ner, the  Spirit  of  God  adds  nothing  to  the  word  of  God.  He  makes 
use  of  the  word  as  His  instrument.  He  gives  us  a  clear  view  of 
those  characters  which  stand  engraven  upon  the  Bible,  and  of 
those  lineaments  which  Nature  hath  drawn  upon  our  own  hearts  ; 
and  therefore  gives  us  a  clear  view  of  that  accordancy  of  divina- 
tion out  of  which  the  whole  of  this  argument  emerges. 

2.  The  evidence  which  is  thus  furnished,  is,  no  doubt,  an  inter- 
nal evidence ;  but  it  is  altogether  dissimilar  from  that  internal 
evidence,  which  some  would  most  presumptuously  and  most  un- 
philosophically  rear,  as  an  accordancy  between  what  they  see  in 
the  Bible,  and  what  they  imagine  to  be  the  plans  and  the  pro- 
cesses of  the  Divinity.  This  evidence  is  nearer  home,  more 
within  the  compass  of  human  experience,  and  in  every  way  more 
consonant  to  the  cautious  and  solid  temper  of  the  modern  philoso- 
phy, and  rests  exclusively  on  the  wondrous  harmony  that  subsists 
between  what  is  seen  in  the  Bible,  and  what  is  felt  within  the 
familiar  recesses  of  one's  own  heart,  and  the  authoritative  infor- 
mations of  one's  own  consciousness. 

3.  It  is  an  evidence  that  might  be  felt,  in  all  its  strength,  by  an 
unlettered  workman — and  he  may  have  well  warranted  convic- 
tions upon  the  subject — and  yet,  from  the  very  nature  of  the  evi- 
dence, he  may  be  unable  to  pass  an  adequate  communication  of 
it  into  another's  bosom — and  he  may  be  loaded  with  contempt  for 
a  set  of  impressions  which  to  others  are  utterly  inexplicable  :  and 
thus  it  is  a  very  possible  thing,  that  what  is  called  madness,  may 
be  soberness  and  truth — and  what  is  branded  as  Methodism,  may 
be  indeed  the  soundest  and  the  most  enlightened  philosophy. 

There  is  another  very  palpable  argument  for  the  reality  of  some 
such  evidence  as  we  have  tried  to  illustrate,  which  it  is  impossible 
to  overlook  ;  and  the  question  we  have  to  put  is,  what  is  that 
evidence  on  which  a  man  becomes  a  believer  within  the  limits  of 
Christendom,  where  the  Bible  is  circulated  ?  And  we  would  ap- 
peal to  the  ministers  of  Christ,  for  they  can  speak  experimentally 
upon  this  question, — tell  us,  amongst  all  the  transitions  you  have 

47 


370  the  christian's  defence  against  infidelity. 

witnessed  from  darkness  to  the  marvellous  light  of  the  Gospel, 
what  the  effective  consideration  was  which  accomplished  such  a 
change  !  Tell  us,  ye  men  whose  office  it  is  to  preside  over  this 
department  of  human  nature,  who  have  long  been  conversant 
with  the  phenomena  which  it  offers,  and  have  doubtless  treasured 
up  in  your  remembrance,  some  cases  of  conversion,  where  the 
after-life  of  the  individual  stood  so  nobly  contrasted  with  his  by- 
gone history,  as  to  attest,  in  characters  the  most  decisive  and 
undeniable,  the  reality  of  his  faith  !  Tell  us,  if  you  have  ever  de- 
tected the  instrumental  cause  of  that  faith — or  what  that  was 
which  the  convert  was  looking  to,  when  this  principle  dawned 
into  existence — or  from  what  quarter  of  contemplation  the  light 
of  truth  beamed  upon  his  understanding — or  where,  in  the  whole 
compass  of  that  field  upon  which  the  thoughts  of  man  can  pos- 
sibly expatiate,  did  he  meet  with  the  charm  which  cleared  all  his 
doubts  and  all  his  darknesses  away  from  him ;  which  established 
his  feet  on  a  way  of  rectitude  that  he  had  never  before  walked, 
and  animated  his  bosom  by  that  Spirit  of  power  and  of  a  sound 
mind,  the  workings  of  which  he  had  never  before  experienced ! 
O  where  lieth  the  mystery  of  these  persuasive  influences  which 
must  have  gathered  around  him,  at  that  point  of  his  earthly  career, 
when  the  doctrine  of  Christ  first  took  an  ascendency  over  his 
judgment,  and  the  morality  of  Christ  shed  its  rich  and  beauteous 
accomplishments  over  his  practice  and  conversation  !  Did  it  lie, 
we  ask,  in  anything  external  to  the  subject-matter  of  the  testi- 
mony ?  or  did  it  lie  within  the  subject-matter  of  the  testimony 
itself?  Did  the  light  lie  in  that  history  which  the  documents  of 
antiquity  enable  you  to  give  of  the  Book?  or  did  it  lie  in  that  doc- 
trine and  information  which  stand  engraven  upon  its  pages  ?  Did 
it  lie  in  the  exhibition  you  made  of  the  proof  for  the  communica- 
tion? or  did  it  lie  in  the  exhibition  you  made  of  the  substance  of 
the  communication  ?  Tell  us  the  argument  of  that  awakening 
sermon  under  which  you  remember  some  secure  hold  of  infidelity 
to  have  been  stormed.  Was  it  in  the  act  of  combating  the  hos- 
tility of  literature,  when,  in  all  the  pride  of  erudition,  you  did  de- 
monstrate the  faithful  conveyance  of  the  Scriptures  of  truth  from 
the  first  age  of  Christianity?  Or  was  it  in  the  act  of  combating 
the  hostility  of  nature's  blindness  and  nature's  opposition,  when 
you  opened  these  Scriptures,  and  made  the  truth  itself  manifest 
to  the  consciences  of  men  ?  This  last  we  imagine  to  be  the  only 
way  of  converting  the  souls  of  men.  It  is  not  done  by  descend- 
ing into  the  depths  of  the  earth,  and  there  fighting  the  battles  of 
the  faith  against  the  dark  and  the  visioned  spectres  of  geology. 
It  is  not  done  by  ascending  up  into  the  heavens,  and  fetching 
down  from  these  wondrous  regions  some  sublime  and  specious 
illustration.  It  is  done,  by  bringing  the  word  nigh  unto  them — 
by  entering  with  it  into  the  warm  and  the  well-known  chambers 
of  their  own  consciousness — by  making  them  feel  the  full  force 


THE    CHRISTIANS    DEFENCE    AGAINST    INFIDELITY.  371 

of  its  adjustments  to  all  their  wants  and  to  all  their  experience — 
by  telling  them  of  that  sin,  under  the  conviction  of  which  nature 
tries  to  forget  God,  or  would  fly  affrighted  from  His  presence — 
and  of  that  Saviour  who  alone  can  hush  the  alarms  of  nature. 
These  are  the  lessons  which  can  do  to  this  very  hour  what  they 
did  in  the  days  of  the  apostles.  They  can  make  the  unbeliever 
and  the  unlearned  feel  himself  to  be  judged  of  all,  and  convinced 
of  all — and  thus  can  manifest  the  secrets  of  his  heart,  so  as  that 
he  shall  acknowledge  God  to  be  in  them  of  a  truth. 

And  here,  by  the  way,  we  cannot  but  remark,  what,  a  powerful 
argument  the  subject  we  have  been  illustrating  furnishes  in  behalf 
of  Bible  and  Missionary  Societies.  Did  we  propose  to  make 
our  next-door  neighbor  a  believer  unto  life,  we  should  feel  that 
the  most  direct  instrumentality  we  could  bring  to  bear  upon  him, 
would  be  to  ply  his  conscience  with  the  word  of  the  testimony. 
And,  did  we  go  to  the  neighbor  beyond  him,  we  would  just  do 
the  same  thing.  And  though,  in  passing  from  one  man  to  another, 
we  widen  the  distance  from  our  own  home,  we  would  never  think 
of  making  any  change  on  the  kind  or  on  the  method  of  applica- 
tion, by  which  we  tried  to  subdue  them  all  unto  the  faith  of  the 
Gospel.  And  in  this  way  would  we  proceed  till  we  got  to  the 
verge  of  Christendom — and  if  such  be  the  right  and  the  effective 
treatment  for  the  last  man  we  found  within  its  limits,  tell  us,  for 
in  truth  we  cannot  perceive  it,  why,  on  leaving  him,  it  should  not 
be  a  treatment  equally  right  and  equally  effective  for  the  very 
first  man  we  meet  with  beyond  it.  How  can  the  evidence  lose 
its  power  in  the  transition  which  we  make  at  this  particular  mo- 
ment? What  ingredient  of  strength  has  fallen  away  from  it? 
What  is  it  that  the  man  on  this  side  of  the  line  has,  which  the  man 
on  the  other  side  of  the  line  has  not  ?  Neither  of  them  is  made 
to  witness  a  miracle.  Neither  of  them  has  heard  a  single  word 
about  the  original  vouchers  for  Christianity,  or  about  the  faithful 
transmission  of  its  credentials  along  the  line  of  many  generations. 
Neither  of  them  has  been  initiated  into  the  scholarship  of  its  argu- 
mentative evidence :  and  if  you  will  just  demand  no  more  for  the 
Christianization  of  the  latter,  than  what  you  count  to  be  enough 
for  the  Christianization  of  the  former,  it  were  easy  to  prove,  that 
the  man  who  is  standing  without  has  just  as  much  to  help  on  his 
discipleship  as  the  man  who  is  standing  within.  Both  of  them 
have  the  same  mental  constitution.  Both  are  in  the  same  state  of 
darkness  and  alienation  from  God.  Both  labor  under  the  same 
fears,  and  may  have  the  same  feeling  of  their  moral  and  spiritual 
necessities.  In  a  word,  each  of  them  possesses  a  bosom  alike 
framed  to  meet,  by  its  responding  movements,  the  message  and 
the  information  of  the  New  Testament.  The  thoughts  of  the  one 
heart  are  as  effectually  reached  by  the  word  of  God,  which  dis- 
cerns and  divides  them  asunder,  as  the  thoughts  of  the  other 
heart.     And  if,  on  the  strength  of  these  principles,  we  may  go,  by 


372 


THE    CHRISTIAN'S    DEFENCE    AGAINST    INFIDELITY. 


a  single  inch,  beyond  the  outskirts  of  Christendom,  on  the  very 
same  principles  is  the  whole  extent  of  the  habitable  world  laid 
open  to  the  enterprises  of  Bible  Societies  and  Christian  Mission- 
aries. There  is  not  a  human  being  who  does  not  carry  within 
him  a  mould  of  correspondence  to  that  die  which  was  wrought  by 
the  wisdom  of  God  ;  and  which  is  fitted  to  meet  the  case  and  the 
circumstances  of  all  His  children  ;  and  which,  in  fact,  makes  the 
evidence  of  the  Bible  as  portable,  as  Bibles  and  teachers  are  port- 
able, and  which  may,  and  therefore  ought,  to  be  carried  round 
the  globe  ;  and  should  be  made  to  traverse  in  every  direction  the 
wide  domains  of  humanity,  and  be  carried  to  every  island  and 
every  district  where  men  are  to  be  found,  and  to  circulate  in  full 
throughout  all  the  tribes  of  this  world's  population,  and  to  leave 
not  so  much  as  one  straggling  remnant  of  the  species  unvisited, 
nor  to  stop  short  in  this  noble  enterprise,  till  the  word  of  the  testi- 
mony has  been  proclaimed  among  all  nations,  and  kindreds,  and 
families. 

And  if  it  were  not  so — if  there  was  no  such  evidence,  as  that 
for  which  we  are  contending,  by  what  practical  avenue  could  the 
faith  of  the  Gospel  be  made  to  find  an  entrance  and  an  establish- 
ment among  the  great  mass  of  our  own  population  ?  Take  away 
from  us  the  self-evidencing  power  of  the  Bible,  and  you  lay  an  in- 
terdict on  the  Christianity  of  cottages,  on  the  Christianity  of  work- 
shops, on  the  Christianity  of  crowded  and  industrious  establish- 
ments, on  the  Christianity  of  nearly  all  our  cities,  and  all  our 
parishes.  That  the  hope  which  is  in  us  may  have  the  property 
of  endurance,  there  must  be  a  reason  for  the  hope  ;  and  where, 
we  ask,  in  the  whole  field  of  their  habitual  contemplations  are  the 
toil-worn  children  of  poverty  to  find  it  ?  Are  they  to  search  for 
this  reason  among  the  archives  of  history  ?  Are  they  to  gather 
it  out  of  the  mouldering  erudition  of  other  days?  Are  they  to 
fetch  it  up  from  the  profound  and  the  puzzling  obscurities  of  argu- 
mentation 1  Are  they  to  encounter  the  toils  of  scholarship,  and 
ere  the  light  of  revelation  can  guide  or  can  gladden  them,  think 
you  that  they  must  learn  to  number,  and  to  balance,  and  to  con- 
front the  testimonies  of  former  generations  ?  No  !  Refuse  us  the 
evidence  we  have  been  insisting  on,  and  in  doing  so,  you  pass  an 
obliterating  sponge  over  nearly  all  the  Christianity  that  is  in  our 
land.  It  might  still  continue  to  be  talked  of  in  the  cloistered  re- 
tirements of  literary  debate  and  speculation.  "But  the  mighty 
host  of  our  people  could  take  no  more  rational  interest  in  its  ques- 
tions, than  they  could  in  any  controversy  of  the  schools.  And  if 
the  truth  of  this  volume  be  not  legibly  stamped  upon  its  own 
pages — if  all  the  evidence  by  which  we  have  affirmed  it  to  be 
most  thoroughly  and  most  visibly  impregnated  be  a  delusion — if 
all  the  varied  points  of  accordancy,  between  the  book  of  revela- 
tion and  the  book  of  human  experience,  be  not  sufficient  to  attest 
the  divinity  which  framed  it — or  if  this  attestation  be  beyond  the 


THE    CHUISTIAn's    DEFENCE    AGAINST    INFIDELITY.  373 

understanding  of  an  ordinary  peasant — then  must  Christianity  be 
ever  shut  up  from  the  vast  majority  of  our  species  ;  nor  do  we 
see  one  possible  way  of  causing  it  to  circulate  at  large  among 
the  families  of  our  land. 

But  let  us  not  be  understood,  by  these  remarks,  to  undervalue 
the  power  and  the  importance  of  the  external  evidences  of  our 
faith.  Though  it  is  to  the  subject-matter  of  the  testimony  itself, 
that  we  would  send  the  inquirer  for  the  most  satisfying  conviction 
of  the  truth  ;  yet  we  hold  it  of  paramount  importance  to  exhibit 
the  strength  of  argument,  and.  the  irresistible  force  of  evidence, 
which  can  be  adduced  for  the  authenticity  and  divine  authority 
of  Revelation,  to  silence  the  gainsayer,  and  to  vindicate  Christi- 
anity from  the  assaults  of  infidelity.  And  we  know  not  a  finer 
assemblage  of  evidence  for  the  divine  Record,  to  meet  and  to 
overthrow  the  sophistries  and  objections  with  which  scepticism  is 
ever  assailing  it,  or  to  resolve  the  doubts  and  difficulties  which 
may  agitate  the  mind  of  the  honest  inquirer,  than  the  able  and 
interesting  Treatises  of  which  the  present  volume  is  composed. 
The  writers  display,  in  an  uncommon  degree,  extensive  knowl- 
edge and  profound  erudition  ;  and  they  possess  every  talent  and 
qualification  which  is  essential  to  solid  argument,  legitimate 
reasoning,  and  sound  induction.  With  a  manly  spirit,  suited  to 
the  rectitude  of  their  cause,  and  possessed  of  an  experimental 
assurance  of  the  truth  which  they  advocate,  their  arguments  are 
more  characterized  by  heartfelt  power  than  subtle  ingenuity  ; 
and,  with  a  feeling  of  confidence  in  the  strength  of  their  cause, 
they  manifest  that  dignity  which  best  comports  with  the  sacred- 
ness  and  majesty  of  truth,  by  rearing  the  fabric  of  their  own 
evidence,  without  descending  to  notice  all  the  oft  refuted,  yet  still 
re-echoed  sophistries  and  cavils  of  infidelity.  The  evidences  they 
present,  however,  are  so  extensive  and  varied,  that  every  order 
of  mind  is  addressed  with  suitable  proofs  for  its  conviction ;  and 
though  it  would  be  impossible  to  advert  to  every  trivial  objection 
which  infidelity  has  invented,  or  every  cavil  which  impiety  has 
urged,  yet  without  fear  or  evasion,  they  have  fairly  selected,  and 
triumphantly  met  those  difficulties  and  objections,  which  infidelity 
has  represented  as  most  formidable  to  Christianity.  Aware  that 
there  are  infatuated  men  who  reason  against  Christianity,  as  if  it 
were  pregnant  with  every  mischief — who  seem  to  delight  in  the 
imagination,  that  such  an  overwhelming  calamity  as  a  belief  in  its 
doctrines  shall  never  overtake  them — and  who  resist  its  preten- 
sions with  such  inflexible  obstinacy,  as  if  the  abrogation  of  Chris- 
tianity would  introduce  a  new  order  of  blessing  into  our  world, 
— the  writers  in  the  present  volume  not  only  introduce  Chris- 
tianity as  presenting  her  credentials,  but  as  stating  and  expound- 
ing her  beneficent  message.  While  deducing  the  legitimate  inter- 
nal evidences,  arising  from  the  nature,  character,  and  design  of 
Christianity,  and  its  peculiar  adaptation  to  renovate  the  moral 


374  the  christian's  defence  against  infidelity. 

condition  of  man,  they  intermingle  their  evidences  with  a  lumi- 
nous exhibition  of  the  dispensation  of  grace — a  dispensation  so 
holy,  perfect,  and  beneficent  in  its  character  and  operation,  that 
while  it  is  well  fitted  to  bless  the  life  that  now  is,  it  furnishes  the 
only  solid  and  comfortable  hope  for  eternity. 

In  Leslie's  u  Short  and  Easy  Method  with  the  Deists,"  and 
•'  The  Truth  of  Christianity  Demonstrated,"  we  have  the  histori- 
cal evidence  for  the  truth  of  Scripture  exhibited  in  a  form  so 
convincing  and  satisfactory,  that  the  mind  which  can  reject  such 
evidence  must  evince  a  total  perversity  of  reason,  as  well  as  an 
abjuration  of  all  such  testimony  as  can  substantiate  the  truth  of 
any  by-gone  event  in  this  world's  history, — which  would  go  to 
expose  every  authentic  record  to  the  charge  of  fabulousness,  and 
reduce  the  best  established  facts  into  a  state  of  doubt  and  uncer- 
tainty. The  firm  coherence  of  his  argument,  and  the  soundness 
of  his  marks  for  distinguishing  between  truth  and  falsehood,  which 
he  so  legitimately  applies  for  ascertaining  the  authenticity  of  the 
facts  of  Scripture  history,  render  his  statements  so  conclusive 
and  irresistible,  that  no  reply  can  be  made  to  his  demonstrations, 
which  does  not  imply  a  dereliction  of  reason  and  principle  which 
the  bitterest  enemy  of  Christianity  would  be  ashamed  to  avow. 
His  proofs  possess  that  speciality  of  character,  that,  even  by  the 
confession  of  infidelity  itself,  they  can  belong  only  to  genuine 
records,  and  can  never  be  found  but  in  connection  with  events 
which,  in  truth  and  reality,  had  a  positive  existence.  It  must, 
therefore,  be  a  daring  and  hardy  scepticism  indeed,  which  can 
elude  or  resist  the  force  of  those  unequivocal  proofs,  by  which 
the  author  indubitably  establishes  the  authenticity  of  the  facts 
which  are  recorded  in  Scripture. 

Not  less  conclusive,  in  another  department  of  evidence,  do  we 
hold  Lord  Lyttleton's  "  Observations  on  the  Conversion  and 
Apostleship  of  St.  Paul."  The  soundness  of  his  reasonings, 
established  on  the  well-known  principles  of  human  nature,  and 
the  no  less  sound  and  philosophical  deductions  which  he  makes 
from  the  whole  sentiments  and  conduct  of  the  apostle,  render  his 
arguments  in  favor  of  Christianity  so  clear  and  irresistible,  that 
we  think  no  honest  mind  can  give  his  "  Observations"  an  attentive 
and  unprejudiced  perusal,  without  arriving  at  a  thorough  and 
well-established  conviction  of  the  truth  of  Christianity.  To  re- 
ject such  evidence,  or  to  arrive  at  any  other  conclusion,  would  be 
to  betray  a  most  wilful  perversity  of  mind,  and  to  commit  a  most 
grievous  outrage  on  the  soundest  principles  and  laws  of  human 
judgment.  From  the  impossibility  of  accounting  for  such  con- 
duct by  the  ingenuity  of  imposture,  it  must  be  by  a  total  inversion 
of  all  the  motives  and  principles  which  are  known  to  influence 
human  conduct,  that  an  opposite  conclusion  can  be  drawn  to  what 
our  author  has  deduced  from  an  examination  of  the  life  and  labors 
of  St.  Paul — that  he  was  indeed  a  divinely-commissioned  agent 


THE    CHRISTIAN'S    DEFENCE    AGAINST    INFIDELITY.  375 

of  Heaven,  and  that  the  Christian  dispensation,  which  he  labored 
to  establish,  has  indubitable  claims  to  a  divine  original. 

In  Dr.  Doddridge's  Discourses  on  the  "  Evidences  of  Chris- 
tianity," we  have  a  full  and  comprehensive  survey  of  all  the 
variety  of  evidence  which  is  generally  adduced  in  support  of  the 
authenticity  and  divine  authority  of  the  New  Testament.  The 
Treatise  is  no  less  characterized  by  the  clear  and  forcible  argu- 
ment which  pervades  it,  than  by  the  affectionate  earnestness 
which  it  breathes,  and  the  close  and  pathetic  appeals  which  the 
excellent  author  makes  to  the  minds  of  his  readers,  on  the  pre- 
eminent importance  of  the  truths  of  the  divine  record,  and  of  the 
no  less  unspeakable  danger  of  neglecting  or  contemning  the  Gos- 
pel message. 

The  next  Treatise,  by  Dr.  Bates,  on  "  The  Divinity  of  the 
Christian  Religion,"  contains  a  no  less  comprehensive,  and  still 
more  powerful  exhibition  of  the  various  evidences  which  can  be 
adduced  for  establishing  the  truth  of  Christianity.  The  evidences 
from  history,  from  prophecy,  from  miracles,  from  the  testimony 
of  credible  witnesses,  are  all  brought  in  distinct  and  convincing 
review  before  the  mind  ;  and  our  readers  cannot  peruse  this  ad- 
mirable Treatise,  without  an  increased  feeling  of  confidence  in 
the  variety  and  fulness,  and  invincible  character  of  that  rich  as- 
semblage of  evidence,  on  the  immovable  basis  of  which  Chris- 
tianity is  established.  And  while  he  satisfactorily  establishes  the 
truth  of  Christianity,  he  does  not  leave  his  readers  in  ignorance 
of  what  Christianity  is.  He  not  only  presents  the  testimony 
which  accompanies  truth,  to  carry  conviction  to  the  understanding, 
but  he  presents  the  truth  itself,  in  such  a  form  as  is  fitted  to  com- 
mend it  to  the  conscience.  And  such  is  our  feeling  of  confidence 
in  the  truth,  for  attesting  its  own  divinity,  that  we  hold  the  truth 
itself  to  possess  a  power  of  manifestation,  which  addresses  the 
heart  with  a  more  prevailing  and  resistless  energy,  than  either 
the  power  of  demonstration  can  press,  or  the  evidence  of  the 
most  incontestable  miracles  can  enforce. 

Dr.  Owen's  Treatise  "  On  the  divine  Original,  Authority,  and 
Self-Evidencing  Light  and  Power  of  the  Holy  Scriptures,"  em- 
braces a  distinct,  but  most  important  species  of  evidence;  and 
this  article  will  be  held  in  high  estimation  by  those  who  deside- 
rate a  satisfactory  conviction  of  the  claims  of  the  Bible  to  divine 
inspiration,  of  which  he  adduces  the  most  solid  and  indubitable 
proofs  ;  and  he  affords  a  no  less  clear  and  satisfactory  explanation 
to  those  who  possess  no  distinct  apprehension  of  the  manner  in 
which  the  word  came  forth  from  God,  and  was  again  given  out 
by  those  inspired  men  to  whom  it  was  communicated,  as  well  as 
the  security  and  infallible  certainty  that  what  they  gave  out  as 
the  mind  and  will  of  God  was  indeed  of  divine  original,  and  a  di- 
vine communication.  On  this  firm  and  immovable  basis  he  es- 
tablishes the  authority  of  the  Scriptures,  their  claim  to  a  suprem- 


376  the  christian's  defence  against  infidelity. 

acy  over  the  mind  and  will  of  those  to  whom  this  revelation  has 
come,  and  the  fearful  danger  of  a  neglect  or  a  rejection  of  the 
message.  And  the  truths  which  are  made  to  evolve,  in  the  prog- 
ress of  his  demonstration,  bear  a  hard  and  humbling  aspect  to 
that  proud  philosophy  which  cherishes  a  feeling  of  sentimental 
adoration  of  the  works  of  nature,  which  are  but  the  subordinate 
reflectors  of  the  glory  of  the  Deity,  while  it  turns  with  antipathy 
and  disgust  from  that  word  which  the  Deity  has  magnified  above 
all  his  works,  as  giving  a  fuller  and  more  glorious  manifestation  of 
his  mind  and  character — a  manifestation  of  the  Deity  so  surpassing 
and  exalted  above  that  which  is  exhibited  in  the  visible  creation, 
that,  in  comparison  with  the  light,  and  power,  and  extent  of  that 
manifestation  which  is  given  out  in  the  Bible,  it  may  well  be  said 
to  have  no  glory,  by  reason  of  the  glory  that  excelleth.  And 
while  we  award  our  meed  of  praise  to  the  writers  of  the  previous 
Treatises  in  this  volume,  who  have  reared  such  a  collective  body 
of  evidence  to  meet  and  overthrow  the  no  less  impotent  than  im- 
pious assaults  of  infidelity,  yet  do  we  hold  Dr.  Owen  to  have  ren- 
dered a  more  essential  service  to  the  cause  of  Divine  Revelation, 
when,  by  his  clear  and  irresistible  demonstrations,  he  has  proved 
that  the  written  word  itself  possesses  a  self- evidencing  light  and 
power  for  manifesting  its  own  divine  original,  superior  to  the  tes- 
timony of  eye-witnesses,  or  the  evidence  of  miracles,  or  those  su- 
pernatural gifts  with  which  the  first  teachers  of  Christianity  were 
endowed  for  accrediting  their  divine  mission.  And  well  may  the 
profane  or  the  infidel  contemners  of  revealed  truth  tremble  at  their 
presumption,  when  they  are  told  not  only  of  the  superiority  of  the 
word  of  God  in  its  power  of  manifestation  above  all  His  works, 
but  of  the  light  and  power  which  the  written  word  possesses  to 
attest  its  own  divinity,  above  all  that  external  evidence  which  in- 
fidel philosophers  so  much  desiderate  for  establishing  the  truth  of 
Divine  Revelation. 

The  Treatise  of  Richard  Baxter  "  On  the  Folly  and  Danger  of 
making  light  of  Christ"  closes  the  volume ;  and  though  it  does 
not  partake  of  the  character  of  direct  evidence,  yet  we  hold  it  to 
be  of  prime  importance  to  the  cause  of  Christian  truth,  as  it  de- 
tects and  exposes  the  latent  causes  of  infidelity  in  the  worldliness, 
or  love  of  pleasure,  or  the  diversified  pursuits  which  engross  the 
mind,  to  the  utter  exclusion  of  the  salvation  which  the  Gospel  re- 
veals. And  truly  does  he  resolve  the  largest  portion  of  the  infi- 
delity which  exists,  into  the  infidelity  of  the  heart,  and  not  of  the 
understanding.  From  the  irreconcilable  characters  of  God  and 
Mammon,  of  Christ  and  Belial,  of  the  love  of  the  Father,  and  the 
love  of  the  world,  those  infatuated  men  who  are  determined  to 
render  their  homage  to  the  one,  must  necessarily  entertain  feel- 
ings of  hostility  to  the  other  ;  and  this  hostility  of  the  affections 
exerts  a  secret  but  blinding  and  delusive  influence  over  the  judg- 
ment, and  in  spite  of  the  clearest  and  most  incontrovertible  evi- 


THE    CHRISTIAN'S    DEFENCE    AGAINST    INFIDELITY.  377 

dence,  betraying  it  into  a  disbelief  of  what  the  depraved  heart 
must  wish  were  not  true.  Aware  as  we  are,  of  the  extreme  re- 
luctance with  which  men  whose  minds  have  become  poisoned 
with  the  pride  of  infidelity,  or  whose  hearts  have  become  de- 
praved with  the  love  of  sin,  admit  any  argument  in  favor  of 
Christianity,  we  could  not  close  our  volume  without  bringing  the 
forcible  and  pathetic  appeals  of  Richard  Baxter  to  bear  upon 
their  consciences.  And  if  there  be  one  piece  in  this  volume, 
which,  in  preference  to  another,  we  would  more  urgently  recom- 
mend to  their  serious  regard,  it  would  be  this  invaluable  Treatise 
of  Richard  Baxter.  Aware  as  he  was  of  that  deep  and  despe- 
rate infatuation  by  which  so  many  are  deceived  to  their  eternal 
undoing,  with  the  tenderness  and  pathos  of  a  man  whose  heart 
glowed  with  angelic  benevolence — and  with  the  earnestness  and 
urgency  of  a  man  who  felt  the  importance  of  his  message  ;  does 
he  endeavor  to  persuade  men  by  all  that  is  commanding  in  the 
authority  of  God — by  all  that  is  winning  in  the  love  of  Christ — 
by  all  that  is  inviting  in  a  blessed  immortality — and  by  all  that  is 
tremendous  in  eternal  perdition,  to  flee  from  the  wrath  to  come, 
and  to  lay  hold  of  the  offered  remedy.  And  if  such  men  con- 
tinue in  their  wilful  and  obstinate  rejection  of  the  Gospel,  and 
heedlessh'  neglect,  or  perversely  resist,  the  mercy  which  it  offers, 
then  it  is  not  from  want  of  clear  and  incontrovertible  evidence, 
but  from  a  desperately  wicked  and  deceitful  heart  which  is  de- 
ceiving them  to  their  ruin  ;  and  we  know  not  by  what  power,  or 
by  what  sophistry  such  infatuated  men  can  turn  away  from  them 
the  force  of  this  fearful  declaration,  that  "  if  our  Gospel  be  hid,  it 
is  hid  to  them  that  are  lost :  in  whom  the  god  of  this  world  hath 
blinded  the  minds  of  them  which  believe  not,  lest  the  light  of  the 
glorious  Gospel  of  Christ,  who  is  the  image  of  God,  should  shine 
unto  them." 

It  is  well  that  Christianity  has  such  a  firm  basis  of  argumenta- 
tion to  rest  upon.  It  is  well  that  she  can  be  triumphantly  borne 
throughout  the  whole  range  of  human  literature,  and  can  bear  to 
be  confronted  with  all  that  the  fancy  or  the  philosophy  of  man 
have  ever  devised  against  her  reputation.  We  count  every  one 
illustration  of  her  external  evidence  to  be  an  accession  to  her 
cause,  nor  can  we  look  at  the  defensive  barrier  which  has  been 
thrown  around  her,  without  wishing  that  the  public  eye  might 
often  be  directed  to  the  strength  and  the  glory  of  her  venerable 
outworks.  But  let  it  not  be  disguised.  The  surrender  of  the  un- 
derstanding to  the  external  argument  is  one  thing  ;  the  rational 
principle  of  Christianity  is  another.  And,  therefore,  there  must 
be  something  more  than  the  bare  evidence  of  Christianity,  to  work 
the  faith  which  is  unto  salvation.  Many  are  the  accomplished 
philosophers  who  have  rejected  this  evidence,  and  to  them  it  will 
stand  in  place  of  the  miracle  of  tongues  to  the  unbelievers  of  old. 
It  will  be  a  sign  to  justify  their  condemnation.     But  many  also 

48 


378  the  christian's  defence  against  infidelity. 

have  admitted  the  evidence,  and  still  the  opinion  has  been  as  un- 
fruitful of  all  that  is  religious,  as  the  conclusion  they  have  come 
to  on  any  literary  question.  And,  men  of  genius  and  accomplish- 
ment as  they  are,  they  must,  to  obtain  the  faith  of  the  Gospel,  just 
put  themselves  on  a  level  with  the  most  untaught  of  our  peasan- 
try. They  must  submit  to  be  tutored  by  the  same  evidence  at 
last.  They  must  labor  after  the  same  manifestation  of  the  truth 
unto  their  consciences.  They  must  open  their  Bibles,  and  give 
earnest  heed  unto  the  word  of  this  prophecy.  To  the  spirit  of 
earnestness  they  must  add  the  spirit  of  prayer.  They  must  knock 
for  light  at  the  door  which  they  cannot  open,  till  the  day  dawns 
and  the  day-star  arise  in  their  hearts — and  then  will  they  find, 
that,  by  a  way  hidden  from  the  wise  and  the  prudent,  but  revealed 
unto  babes,  the  word  of  prophecy  may  become  more  sure  than 
any  miracle  can  make  it — more  sure,  than  if  a  voice  of  attesta- 
tion were  to  sound  forth  upon  them  from  the  canopy  of  heaven — 
and  greatly  more  sure  than  by  all  that  contradictory  evidence, 
which  links  the  present  with  the  past,  the  period  in  which  we  now 
live  with  that  wondrous  period,  when  such  a  voice  was  heard  by 
human  ears  on  the  mount  of  transfiguration. 

It  is  true  that  the  word  of  the  testimony  is  often  perused  in 
vain — that  in  the  reading  of  the  Scriptures,  the  veil  which  is  upon 
the  heart  of  the  natural  man  often  remains  untaken  away — and 
that,  after  all  that  is  done  with  him,  he  persists  in  blind  and  wil- 
ful obstinacy,  and  will  neither  see  the  doctrine  of  the  Bible,  nor 
the  reflection  of  that  doctrine  upon  his  own  character.  To  work 
this  effect,  the  word  must  be  accompanied  by  the  demonstration 
of  the  Spirit,  and  who  shall  limit  his  operations?  When  we  think 
of  the  influences  of  Him  who  is  promised  in  answer  to  prayer, 
and  when  we  farther  think  of  the  extent  of  warrant  that  we  have 
for  prayer,  even  that  we  should  ask  for  all  such  things  as  are 
agreeable  to  the  will  of  God,  who  willeth  all  men  to  be  saved,  and 
to  come  to  the  knowledge  of  the  truth,  and  who  is  ever  ready  to 
put  a  blessing  on  His  own  word  ;  then,  to  the  diligent  reading  of 
the  word,  let  him  add  the  humble,  earnest,  and  sincere  prayer, 
that  "  God  who  commanded  the  light  to  shine  out  of  darkness, 
may  shine  into  his  heart,  to  give  him  the  light  of  the  knowledge 
of  the  glory  of  God,  as  it  is  revealed  in  the  face  of  Jesus  Christ." 


INTRODUCTORY  ESSAY 

TO 

THE    LIVING    TEMPLE; 

OR, 

A  GOOD  MAN  THE  TEMPLE  OF  GOD. 
BY   THE   REV.   JOHN   HOWE,   A.M. 


It  is  well  remarked  by  the  excellent  John  Howe,  in  the  follow- 
ing Treatise,  that  the  "  Living  Temple,"  or,  as  it  is  frequently 
styled  in  the  New  Testament  the  "  Kingdom  of  Heaven,"  which 
God  is  setting  up  in  the  world,  "  is  not  established  by  might  or  by 
power,  but  by  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  ;  who — as  the  structure  is 
spiritual,  and  to  be  situated  and  raised  up  in  the  mind  or  spirit  of 
man— works,  in  order  to  it,  in  a  way  suitable  thereto  ;  that  is, 
very  much  by  soft  and  gentle  insinuations,  to  which  are  subser- 
vient the  self-recommending  amiableness  and  comely  aspect  of  re- 
ligion, the  discernible  gracefulness  and  uniform  course  of  such  in 
whom  it  bears  rule,  and  is  a  settled,  living  law.  It  is  a  structure 
to  which  there  is  a  concurrence  of  truth  and  holiness  ;  the  former 
letting  in  a  vital,  directive,  formative  light — the  latter,  a  heavenly, 
calm,  and  god-like  frame  of  spirit."  To  the  same  import  is  the 
declaration  of  our  Saviour,  when,  in  answer  to  the  Pharisees,  who 
demanded  of  Him  when  the  kingdom  of  God  should  come,  re- 
plied, '*  The  kingdom  of  God  cometh  not  with  observation ;  nei- 
ther shall  they  say,  Lo,  here  !  or,  lo,  there  !  for,  behold,  the  king- 
dom of  God  is  within  you."  We  are  thus  given  to  understand, 
that  the  kingdom  which  God  is  establishing  in  the  world,  does  not 
consist  in  external  forms  and  observances — that  it  is  not  of  a  tem- 
poral, but  of  a  spiritual  character — and  that,  unlike  the  establish- 
ment of  earthly  kingdoms,  it  cometh  with  none  of  those  visible 
accompaniments  which  meet  the  eye  of  public  observation. 

The  establishment  of  a  new  kingdom  in  the  world  carries  much 
in  it  to  strike  the  eye  of  an  observer.  There  is  a  deal  of  visible 
movement  accompanying  the  progress  of  such  an  event — the 
march  of  armies,  and  the  bustle  of  conspiracies,  and  the  exclama- 


380 


HOWE  S    LIVING    TEMTLE. 


tions  of  victories,  and  the  triumph  of  processions,  and  the  splendor 
of  coronations.  All  these  doings  are  performed  upon  a  conspicu- 
ous theatre  ;  and  there  is  not  an  individual  in  the  country,  who,  if 
not  an  actor,  may  be  at  least  an  observer  on  the  elevated  stage 
of  great  and  public  revolutions.  He  can  point  his  finger,  and  say, 
Lo,  here  !  or,  lo,  there  !  to  the  symptoms  of  political  change  which 
are  around  him  ;  and  the  clamorous  discontent  of  one  province, 
and  the  warlike  turbulence  of  another,  and  the  loud  expressions 
of  public  sentiment  at  home,  and  the  report  of  preparation  abroad 
— all  force  themselves  upon  the  notice  of  spectators  ;  so  that 
when  a  new  kingdom  is  set  up  in  the  world,  that  kingdom  cometh 
with  observation. 

The  answer  of  our  Saviour  to  the  question  of  the  Pharisees, 
may  be  looked  upon  as  designed  to  correct  their  misconceptions 
respecting  the  nature  of  the  kingdom  which  he  was  to  establish. 
There  is  no  doubt  that  they  all  looked  for  a  deliverance  Irom  the 
yoke  of  Roman  authority — that,  in  their  eyes,  the  Captain  of  their 
Salvation  was  to  be  the  leader  of  a  mighty  host,  who,  fighting 
under  the  special  protection  of  God,  would  scatter  dismay  and 
overthrow  among  the  oppressors  of  their  country — that  the  din 
of  war,  and  the  pride  of  conquest,  and  the  glories  of  a  widely 
extended  dominion,  and  all  the  visible  parade  of  a  supreme  and 
triumphant  monarchy,  were  to  shed  a  lustre  over  their  beloved 
land.  And  it  must  have  been  a  sore  mortification  to  them  all, 
when  they  saw  the  pretensions  of  the  Messiah  associated  with 
the  poverty,  and  the  meekness,  and  the  humble,  unambitious,  and 
spiritual  character  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  We  cannot  justify  the 
tone  of  His  persecutors  ;  but  we  must  perceive,  at  the  same  time, 
the  historical  consistency  of  all  their  malice,  and  bitterness,  and 
irritated  pride,  with  the  splendor  of  those  expectations  on  which 
they  had  been  feasting  for  years,  and  which  gave  a  secret  eleva- 
tion to  their  souls  under  the  endurance  of  their  country's  bondage, 
and  their  country's  wrongs.  It  marks — and  it  marks  most  strik- 
ingly— how  the  thoughts  of  God  are  not  as  the  thoughts  of  man ; 
that  the  actual  fulfilment  of  those  prophecies  which  related  to  the 
history  of  Judea,  turned  out  so  differently  from  the  anticipations 
of  the  men  who  lived  in  it ;  and  that  Jerusalem,  which,  in  point 
of  expectation,  was  to  sit  as  mistress  over  a  tributary  world,  was, 
in  point  of  fact,  torn  up  from  its  foundations,  after  the  vial  of 
God's  wrath  had  been  poured  in  a  tide  of  unexampled  misery  over 
the  heads  of  its  wretched  people.  Now,  what  became  all  the 
while  of  those  prophecies  which  respected  the  Messiah  ?  What 
became  of  that  kingdom  of  God  which  the  Pharisees  inquired 
about,  and  of  which,  however  much  they  were  in  the  wrong  re- 
specting its  nature,  they  were  certainly  in  the  right  respecting  the 
time  of  its  appearance  ?  Did  it  actually  appear  ?  Is  it  possible 
that  it  could  be  working  its  way,  at  the  very  time  that  every  hope 
which  man  conceived  of  it  was  turned  into  the  cruellest  mockery  ? 


howe's  living  temple.  381 

Is  it  possible  that  the  truth  of  prophecy  could  be  receiving  its 
most  splendid  vindication,  at  the  very  time  that  every  human  in- 
terpreter was  put  to  shame,  and  that  all  that  happened  was  the 
reverse  of  all  that  was  anticipated?  Surely  if  any  kingdom  was 
formed  at  that  time,  when  the  besom  of  destruction  passed  through 
the  land  of  Judea,  and  swept  the  whole  fabric  of  its  institutions 
away  from  it — surely  if  it  was  such  a  kingdom,  as  was  to  spread, 
through  the  seed  of  Abraham,  the  promised  blessing  among  all 
the  families  of  the  earth,  and  that,  too,  when  a  cloud  of  ignominy 
was  gathering  upon  the  descendants  of  Abraham — surely  if  at  the 
time  when  Pagans  desolated  the  Land  of  Promise,  and  profaned 
the  temple,  and  entered  the  holy  place,  and  wantoned  in  barbar- 
ous levity  among  those  sacred  courts  where  the  service  of  the 
true  God  had  been  kept  for  many  generations — surely  if  at  such 
a  time  and  with  such  a  burden  of  disgrace  and  misery  on  the 
people  of  Israel,  a  kingdom  was  forming  that  was  to  be  the  glory 
of  that  people — then  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  no  earthly 
eye  should  see  it  under  the  gloom  of  that  disastrous  period,  or  that 
the  kingdom  of  God,  coming  as  it  did  in  the  midst  of  wars  and 
rumors  of  wars,  when  men's  eyes  were  looking  at  other  things, 
and  their  hearts  were  failing  them,  should  have  eluded  their  ob- 
servation. 

In  common  language,  a  kingdom  carries  our  thoughts  to  the 
country  over  which  it  is  established.  The  kingdom  of  Sweden 
directs  the  eye  of  our  mind  to  that  part  of  Europe  ;  and  in  the  va- 
rious places  of  the  Bible  where  the  kingdom  of  God  and  the  king- 
dom of  heaven  are  mentioned,  this  is  one  of  the  significations. 
But  it  has  also  other  significations.  It  sometimes  means,  not  the 
place  over  which  the  royal  authority  extends,  but  the  royal  author- 
ity itself.  In  the  first  sense,  the  kingdom  of  heaven  carries  our 
attention  to  heaven ;  but  with  this  as  the  meaning,  we  could  not 
understand  what  John  the  Baptist  pointed  to,  when  he  said  "the 
kingdom  of  heaven  is  at  hand."  But,  in  the  second  sense,  it  is 
quite  intelligible,  and  means  that  the  authority  which  subordinates 
all  the  families  of  heaven  to  the  one  Monarch  who  reigns  there, 
was  on  the  eve  of  being  established  with  efficacy  on  earth  ;  or,  in 
other  words,  that  the  prayer  was  now  beginning  its  accomplish- 
ment— "  Thy  will  be  done  on  earth  as  it  is  in  heaven."  Hence  it 
is  that  some  translators,  for  the  term  kingdom,  substitute  the  term 
reign  ;  and  make  our  Saviour  say,  that  the  reign  of  God  cometh 
not  with  observation,  for  the  reign  of  God  is  within  you.  The 
will  of  man  is  the  proper  seat  of  the  authority  of  God.  It  is  there 
where  rebellion  against  Him  exists  in  its  principle  ;  and  where 
that  rebellion  is  overthrown,  it  is  there  where  the  authority  of  God 
sits  in  triumph  over  all  His  enemies.  Give  Him  the  will  of  man, 
and  invest  that  will  with  an  efficient  control  over  the  doings  of 
man,  and  you  give  Him  all  He  wants.  You  render  Him  the  one 
act  of  obedience  which  embraces  every  other.     "  Give  me  thy 


382 


HOWLS    LIVIXG    TEMPLE. 


heart,"  is  a  precept,  the  performance  of  which  involves  in  it  the 
surrender  of  all  the  man  to  all  the  requirements.  It  brings  the 
whole  life  under  its  authority  ;  for  it  takes  that  into  its  keeping 
out  of  which  are  the  issues  of  life.  And  could  these  hearts  of 
ours  be  brought  into  subjection  to  the  first  and  great  command- 
ment, obedience  would  cease  to  be  a  task  ;  for  we  would  delight 
to  run  in  the  way  of  it.  To  do  it  would  be  our  meat  and  our 
drink.  We  would  know,  in  the  experience  of  our  own  lives,  that 
the  commandments  of  God  are  not  grievous.  It  is  only  grievous 
to  do  that  which  is  against  the  bent  of  the  will.  But  to  do  that 
which  is  with  the  bent  of  the  will,  contains  in  it  all  the  facility  of 
a  natural  and  spontaneous  movement.  It  is  doing  what  is  a  pleas- 
ure to  ourselves.  It  is  said  to  be  one  of  the  attributes  of  rebel- 
lion, that  it  walks  in  the  counsel  of  its  own  heart,  and  in  the  sight 
of  its  own  eyes.  But  this  is  only  when  the  heart  is  alienated  from 
the  God  of  heaven,  and  the  eyes  are  blinded  by  the  god  of  this 
world.  Give  us  a  heart  which  the  purifying  grace  of  the  Gospel 
hath  made  clean,  and  eyes  to  which  Christ  hath  given  light,  and 
then  it  is  no  longer  rebellion  to  walk  in  the  counsel  of  such  a  heart, 
and  in  the  sight  of  such  eyes.  Obedience  against  the  desires  and 
tendencies  of  the  heart  is  painful  as  the  drudgery  of  a  slave ;  and, 
in  fact,  to  the  eye  of  God,  who  thinks  that  if  He  has  not  the  heart 
He  has  nothing,  it  is  no  obedience  at  all — but  obedience,  with 
these  desires  and  tendencies,  is  carried  on  with  all  the  spring  and 
energy  of  a  pleasurable  exercise.  And,  oh  !  precious  privilege  of 
him  who  is  made  by  faith  to  partake  in  the  heart-purifying  influ- 
ences of  the  Gospel !  It  is  the  very  pleasure  which  we  take  in 
the  doing  of  God's  will,  and  which  makes  it  so  delightful  to  us,  that 
gives  to  our  performances  all  their  value  in  the  eye  of  God.  We 
will  be  at  no  loss  to  understand  the  happiness  of  a  well-founded 
Christian,  when  the  doing  of  that  which  is  in  the  highest  degree 
delightful  to  himself,  meets,  and  is  at  one,  with  all  the  security  of 
God's  friendship  and  God's  approbation.  We  are  now  touching 
upon  such  an  experience  of  the  inner  man  as  the  world  knoweth 
not,  and  are  describing  the  mysteries  of  such  a  kingdom  as  the 
world  discerneth  not  ;  but  whether  all  our  readers  go  along  with 
us  or  not,  it  remains  true,  that  if  the  love  of  God  be  made  to  reign 
within  us,  His  will  becomes  our  will.  And  this  commandment 
proves  itself  to  be  the  first  of  all ;  for  when  it  is  fulfilled,  the  fulfil- 
ment of  all  the  rest  follows  in  its  train — and  the  greatest  of  all  ; 
for  it,  as  it  were,  takes  a  wide  enough  sweep  to  inclose  them  all, 
and  to  form  a  guard  and  a  security  for  their  observance. 

The  reign  of  God  on  earth,  then,  is  the  reign  of  His  will  over 
the  unseen  movements  of  the  inner  man.  This  is  the  kingdom  He 
wants  to  establish.  It  is  the  submission  of  that  which  is  within 
us,  that  He  claims  as  His  due  ;  and  if  it  be  withheld  from  Him, 
all  the  conformity  of  our  outer  doings  is  a  vain  and  an  empty  sac- 
rifice.    Give  us  a  right  mind  towards  God,  and  you  give  us,  in  the 


howe's  living  temple.  383 

individual  who  owns  that  mind,  all  the  elements  of  loyalty.  It  is 
there  where  His  authority  is  felt  and  acknowledged  to  be  a  right- 
ful authority.  It  is  there  where  its  requirements  are  looked  at  by 
the  understanding,  and  laid  upon  the  conscience,  and  move  the 
will  with  all  the  force  of  a  resistless  obligation,  and  form  the  pur- 
pose of  obedience,  and  send  forth  that  purpose,  armed  with  the 
full  power  of  a  presiding  influence,  over  every  step  and  movement 
of  his  history.  It  is  in  the  busy  chamber  of  the  mind  where  all 
that  is  great  and  essential  in  the  work  of  obedience  is  carried  on. 
The  mighty  struggle  between  the  powers  of  heaven  and  of  hell  is 
for  the  possession  of  this  little  chamber.  The  subtle  enemy  of  our 
race  knows,  that  while  he  has  this  for  his  lodging-place,  the  em- 
pire is  his  own — and  give  him  only  the  citadel  of  the  heart,  and 
he  will  revel  in  all  the  glories  of  his  undivided  monarchy.  The 
strong  man  reigns  in  his  house  with  the  full  authority  of  its  mas- 
ter, till  a  stronger  than  he  overcome  him,  and  bind  him,  and  take 
possession  of  that  which  he  before  occupied.  And  such  is  the 
spirit  that  worketh  in  the  children  of  disobedience.  It  is  in  the 
heart  of  man  that  he  worketh,  and  is  ever  plying  it  with  his  wiles 
and  contrivances,  and  turning  its  affections  to  the  creature,  and 
blinding  it  to  all  that  is  glorious  or  lovely  in  the  image  of  the  Cre- 
ator ;  and  by  his  power  over  the  fancy,  causing  it  to  imagine  a 
greatness,  and  a  stability,  and  a  value,  and  an  enjoyment  in  the 
things  of  the  world  which  do  not  belong  to  them  ;  and  whispering 
false  promises  to  the  ear  of  the  inner  man,  and  seducing  him  as  he 
did  the  first  of  our  race,  so  as  to  bring  him  into  the  snare  of  the 
devil,  and  to  take  him  captive  at  his  will.  In  the  same  manner,  he 
who  came  to  destroy  the  works  of  the  devil,  bends  his  main  force 
to  the  quarter  where  these  works  are  strongest,  and  their  position 
is  most  advantageous  to  the  enemy.  The  heart  of  man  is  the 
mighty  subject  of  this  spiritual  contest,  and  the  possession  of  the 
heart  is  the  prize  of  victory.  To  those  who  have  not  yet  learned 
to  take  their  lesson  from  the  Bible,  all  this  sounds  like  a  fabulous 
imagination,  or  the  legendary  tale  of  an  artful  priesthood  to  a 
drivelling  and  superstitious  people.  But  it  is  all  to  be  met  with 
in  God's  revealed  communication.  You  are  ignorant  of  what  you 
ought  to  know,  if  you  know  not  that  a  contest  is  going  on  among 
the  higher  orders  of  being  for  the  mastery  of  all  that  is  within 
you.  Let  Christ  then  dwell  in  you  by  faith.  He  is  knocking  at 
the  door  of  your  heart,  and  if  you  will  open  it  to  receive  Him,  He 
will  enter  it.  He  will  sweep  it  of  all  its  corruptions.  He  will 
enable  you  to  overcome,  for  then  greater  will  be  He  that  is  in  you 
than  he  that  is  in  the  world.  The  kingdom  of  God  is  righteous- 
ness and  peace,  and  joy  in  the  Holy  Ghost ;  and  He  making  you, 
by  the  power  of  His  Spirit,  to  abound  in  these  fruits,  will  in  you 
make  another  addition  to  that  living  temple — that  spiritual  king- 
dom which  God  is  establishing  in  the  world. 

Man  has  revolted  from  God,  and  a  fearful  change  has  taken 


384  howe's  living  temple. 

place  in  his  moral  constitution  ;  and  thus  the  things  of  sight  and 
of  sense,  instead  of  leading  his  thoughts  to  God,  have  become  the 
idolatrous  objects  of  his  affections.     In  his  original  state  of  inno- 
cence, man  not  only  held  direct  and   intimate  communion  with 
God,  but  all  that  he  saw,  and  all  that  he  enjoyed,  conducted  his 
thoughts  and  his  affections  to  that  Being  whose  love  and  whose 
authority  reigned  in  supremacy  over  his  heart.     The  gratification 
of  his  desire  for  created  things,  was  then  in  perfect  harmony  with 
the  love  of  the  Creator.     And  man  would  just  now  have  been  in 
this  condition  if  he  had  not  fallen.     He  would  not  have  counted  it 
his  duty,  to  have  violently  counteracted  his  every  taste,  and  every 
desire,  for  the  things  which  are  created.     The  practical  habit  of 
his  life  would  not  have  been  a  constant  and  strenuous  opposition 
to  all  that  could  minister  delight  to  the  sensitive  part  of  his  con- 
stitution.    He  would  not  have  been  ever  and  anon  employed  in 
thwarting  the  adaptations  which  God  had  ordained  between  the 
objects  that  are  around  him,  and  his  organs  of  enjoyment.     It  is 
true,  that  when  Eve  put  forth  her  hand  to  the  forbidden  fruit,  it 
was  after  she  had  looked  upon  the  tree,  and  seen  that  it  was  good 
for  food,  and  pleasant  to  the  eyes  :  but  the  very  same  thing  is 
said  of  the  other  trees  in  the  garden,  "  for  out  of  the  ground 
made  the  Lord  to  grow  every  tree  that  is  pleasant  to  the  sight, 
and  good  for  food."     Our  first  parents  tasted  of  all  these  trees 
without  offence, — and  in  that  habitation  of  sweets  many  an  avenue 
of  enjoyment  was  open  to  them  ;  and  a  thousand  ways  may  well 
be  conceived,  in   which   the   loveliness   of  surrounding   nature 
would  minister  delight  both  to  the  eye  and  the  feeling  of  our  first 
parents, — and  from  every  point  of  that  external  materialism  which 
God  had  reared  for  his  accommodation,  would  there  beam  a  fe- 
licity upon  the  creature  whom  He  had  so  organized,  as  to  suit  his 
capacities   of  pleasure  to   his  outward  circumstances.     We  are 
not  to  conceive,  that  during  that  short-lived  period  of  the  world's 
innocence,  and   of  Heaven's  favor,  there  was  no   gratification 
transmitted  to  the  soul  of  man  from  the  sensible  and  created 
things  which  were  on  every  side  of  him.     His  taste  was  gratified, 
— and  amid  the  pure  luxury,  and  among  the  delicious  repasts  of 
paradise,  might  be  perceived  in  him  a  principle  of  desire,  corres- 
ponding to  what  in  our  days  of  depravity  is  termed  the   lust  of 
the   flesh.     His    eye   was   gratified, — and   as   he   surveyed   the 
beauties  of  his  garden,  and  felt  himself  to  be  its  vested  and  right- 
ful proprietor,  would  he  experience  a  principle  of  desire,  which, 
in  its  transmission  to  a  corrupt  posterity,  has  now  become  the 
lust  of  the  eye.     His  sense  of  superior  dignity  was  gratified, — 
and  as  he  stalked  in  benevolent  majesty  among  the  tribes  of  cre- 
ation that  had  been  placed  beneath  him,  would  he  feel  the  kind- 
lings of  that  very  affection,  which,  tainted   by  the  malignity  of 
sin,  has  sunk  down  among  his  offspring  into  the  pride  of  life.     All 
these  affections,  which  in  a  state  of  guilt  have  so  virulent  an 


howe's  living  temple.  385 

operation  on  the  heart,  as  to  be  opposite  to  the  love  of  God, — 
there  is  not  one  of  them  but  may  have  had  a  pure  and  a  righteous 
counterpart  in  a  state  of  innocence. 

And  the  whole  explanation  of  the  matter  appears  simply  to  be 
this.  Adam  lived  at  that  time  in  communion  with  God.  In  all 
that  he  enjoyed,  he  saw  a  Giver's  hand,  and  a  Giver's  kindness. 
That  link,  by  which  the  happiness  he  derived  from  the  use  of  the 
creature  was  associated  with  the  love  of  the  Creator,  was  clearly 
and  constantly  present  with  him.  There  was  not  one  thing 
which  he  either  tasted  or  saw,  that  was  not  regarded  by  him  as  a 
token  of  the  Divine  beneficence  ;  insomuch  that  the  expression 
of  a  Father's  care  and  a  Father's  tenderness,  beamed  upon  his 
senses,  from  every  one  object  with  which  his  senses  came  into  in- 
tercourse. Whatever  he  looked  upon  with  the  eye  of  his  body, 
was  but  to  him  the  material  vehicle,  through  which  the  love  of  the 
great  Author  of  all  found  its  way  to  him,  with  some  new  accession 
of  enjoyment ;  nor  could  there  one  pleasurable  feeling  then  be 
made  to  arise  which  was  not  most  exquisitely  heightened,  and 
most  intimately  pervaded,  by  the  grateful  remembrance  of  Him 
who  had  placed  him  in  his  present  condition,  and  whose  liberal 
hand  had  done  so  much  to  bless  and  to  adorn  it.  In  the  case  of  a 
human  benefactor,  there  is  no  difficulty  in  perceiving,  that  there  is 
room  in  the  heart,  both  for  a  sense  of  gratification  from  the  gift, 
and  for  a  sense  of  gratitude  to  the  giver.  In  the  case  of  the 
heavenly  Benefactor,  the  union  of  these  two  things  stood  con- 
stant and  inseparable,  and  was  only  dissolved  by  the  fall.  A  sense 
of  God  mingled  with  every  influence  that  came  from  the  sur- 
rounding materialism  upon  our  first  parents.  It  impregnated  all. 
It  sanctified  all.  The  things  of  sense  did  not  detain  them  for  a 
single  moment  from  God  ;  because,  while  busied  with  the  work 
of  enjoyment,  they  were  equally  busied  with  the  work  of  grat- 
itude. All  that  they  tasted,  or  handled,  or  saw,  were  memorials 
of  the  Divinity ;  insomuch  that  His  visible  presence  in  the  gar- 
den was  never  felt  to  be  an  interruption.  It  only  made  Him 
present  to  their  senses,  who  was  constantly  present  to  their 
thoughts.  It  for  a  time  withdrew  them  from  some  of  the  scenes 
on  which  his  character  was  imprinted  ;  but  it  summoned  them  to 
a  direct  contemplation  of  the  character  itself.  While  it  suspended 
their  enjoyment  of  a  few  of  the  tokens  of  his  love,  it  gave  them  a 
nearer  and  more  affecting  enjoyment  of  its  reality  ;  and  instead 
of  reluctantly  withdrawing  from  those  objects  which  were  merely 
dear  to  them  as  the  reflections  of  His  kindness,  when  He  called 
them  to  an  act  of  fellowship  with  the  kindness  itself,  did  they 
recognize  His  voice,  and  obeyed  it  with  ecstasy. 

Now,  without  adverting  to  the  way  in  which  the  transition 
from  the  former  to  the  present  state  of  man's  moral  nature  has 
taken  place — such  in  fact  has  been  the  transition,  that  the  two 
states  are  not  only  unlike,  but  in  direct  and  diametric  opposition 

49 


38G  Howie's  living  temple. 

to  each  other — there  is  no  such  change  in  his  physical  constitu- 
tion, but  that  what  tasted  pleasurably  to  him  in  his  state  of  inno- 
cence, tastes  pleasurably  to  him  still — and  what  looked  fair  to  him 
in  external  nature  then,  looks  fair  to  him  now — and  in  many  in- 
stances, what  regaled  his  senses  in  the  one  state,  is  equally  fitted 
to  regale  them  in  the  other.  The  purity  of  Eden  did  not  lie  in 
the  want  or  the  weakness  of  all  physical  sensation  ;  neither  does 
the  guilt  of  our  accursed  world  lie  in  the  existence,  or  even  in  the 
strength,  of  physical  sensation.  But  in  the  former  state,  the  gift 
stood  at  all  times  associated  in  the  mind  of  man  with  the  Giver. 
God  rejoiced  over  his  children  to  do  them  good  ;  and  they,  while 
rejoicing  in  the  good  that  they  obtained,  felt  it  all  to  be  heightened 
and  pervaded  by  a  sense  of  his  kindness.  Every  new  accession 
to  their  enjoyment,  instead  of  seducing  them  from  their  loyalty, 
only  served  to  confirm  it ;  and  brought  a  new  accession  to  that 
love,  which  made  their  duty  to  be  their  delight,  and  their  highest 
privilege  and  pleasure  to  be  the  keeping  of  His  commandments. 
The  moral  and  spiritual  change  which  our  race  has  undergone, 
consisted  in  this — that  the  tie  in  their  minds  was  broken,  by  which 
the  enjoyment  of  the  gift  led  to  a  sense  and  a  recognition  of  the 
Giver.  It  is  the  breaking  asunder  of  this  link  which  simply  and 
essentially  forms  the  corruption  of  man.  He  drinks  of  the  stream, 
without  any  recognition  of  the  fountain  from  which  it  flows.  God 
is  banished  from  his  gratitude  and  from  his  thoughts.  With  him 
the  whole  business  of  enjoyment  is  made  up  of  an  intercourse 
between  his  senses,  and  the  objects  that  are  suited  to  them.  There 
is  no  intercourse  between  his  mind  and  that  Being,  who  is  the 
Author  both  of  his  senses,  and  of  all  that  is  fitted  to  regale  them. 
He  makes  use  of  created  things,  and  has  pleasure  in  the  use  of 
them.  But  in  that  pleasure  he  rests  and  terminates.  Instead  of 
vehicles  leading  him  to  God,  they  are  in  his  eye  stationary  and  ul- 
timate objects  ;  the  possession  of  which,  and  the  enjoyment  of 
which,  are  all  that  he  aspires  after.  Pleasure  is  prosecuted  for 
itself.  Wealth  is  prosecuted  for  itself.  Distinction  is  prosecuted 
for  itself.  There  is  no  wish  on  the  part  of  natural  men  for  a  por- 
tion in  anything  beyond  these.  God  is  not  the  object  of  their  de- 
sire, and  he  is  just  as  little  the  object  of  their  dependence.  It  is 
neither  God  whom  they  are  seeking,  nor  is  it  to  God  that  they 
look  for  the  attainment  of  what  they  are  seeking.  They  count 
upon  fortune,  and  experience,  and  the  constancy  of  the  course  of 
nature,  and  anything  but  the  power,  and  the  purposes,  and  the 
sovereignty  of  God.  He,  in  fact,  is  deposed  from  his  supremacy, 
both  as  an  object  of  desire  and  an  object  of  dependence.  Men 
have  deeply  revolted  from  God  ;  and  they  have  raised  the  world, 
not  into  a  rival,  but  into  the  sole  and  triumphant  divinity  of  their 
adoration.  The  lust  of  the  flesh,  and  the  lust  of  the  eye,  and  the 
pride  of  life,  may  have  all  had  their  counterpart  in  the  constitu- 
tion of  Adam  ere  he  fell  ;  but  instead  of  averting  his  eye  from  the 


HOWE  S    LIVING    TEMPLE.  387 

Father,  they  brought  the  Father  more  vividly  into  his  remem- 
brance— instead  of  intercepting  God,  they  conducted  both  his 
thoughts  and  his  affections  to  the  Being  who  openeth  his  hand 
liberally,  and  satisfieth  the  desire  of  every  living  thing.  But  with 
the  diseased  posterity  of  Adam,  these  affections  are  only  so  many 
idolatrous  desires  towards  the  creature — -so  many  acts  of  homage 
towards  the  world,  regarded  in  the  light  of  a  satisfying  and  inde- 
pendent deity — and  therefore  is  it  said  of  them,  that  "  they  are 
not  of  the  Father,  but  of  the  world." 

Now,  to  bring  this  home  to  familiar  experience— who  is  there, 
in  looking  forward  with  delight  to  some  entertainment  of  luxury 
— or  who  is  there,  in  prosecuting  with  intense  devotion  some  en- 
terprise of  gain — or  who  is  there,  in  adding  to  the  pomp  of  his 
establishment,  that  ever  thinks  of  God  as  having  furnished  the 
means,  or  as  having  created  the  materials  of  these  respective 
gratifications  ?  They  look  no  farther  than  to  the  materials  them- 
selves. For  the  indulgence  of  these  various  affections,  they  draw 
not  upon  God,  but  upon  this  solid  and  visible  world,  to  which 
they  ascribe  all  the  power  and  all  the  independency  of  God. 
They  look  not  to  any  pleasure  which  they  enjoy  as  emanating 
from  the  first  cause.  They  see  it  emanating  from  secondary 
causes  ;  and  with  these  do  they  stop  short,  and  are  satisfied.  It 
is  this  which  stamps  the  guilt  of  atheism  on  the  whole  practical 
habit  and  system  of  human  life.  In  the  prosecution  of  its  objects, 
not  one  civil  obligation  may  have  been  violated — not  one  deed 
may  have  been  committed  to  forfeit  the  respect  of  society — not 
one  thing  may  ever  have  been  charged  upon  this  world's  idolater 
to  alienate  the  regard,  but  everything  may  have  been  done  by  him 
to  conciliate  the  kindness,  and  draw  down  upon  him  the  flattery 
of  his  fellow-men.  But,  alas  !  he  has  broken  loose  from  God  ! 
He  lives,  from  the  cradle  to  the  grave,  without  any  practical  rec- 
ognition of  Him  in  whom  he  lives,  and  moves,  and  has  his  being. 
A  demonstration  of  social  virtue,  so  far  from  offending,  may  min- 
ister to  his  complacency.  But  to  bid  him  crucify  his  affections 
for  the  things  of  sense,  is  to  bid  him  inflict  a  suicide  upon  his  per- 
son. And  thus,  while  beneficent  in  conduct,  and  fair  in  reputa- 
tion among  his  fellows,  may  he  in  prospect  be  linked  with  the  fate 
of  a  world  that  is  soon  to  be  burnt  up,  and  in  character  be  tainted 
with  the  spirit  of  a  world  that  is  lying  in  wickedness.  And  thus 
it  is,  that  there  may  be  spiritual  guilt  in  the  midst  of  social  accom- 
plishment— there  may  be  wrath  from  heaven  in  the  midst  of  ap- 
plause and  connivance  from  the  world — there  may  be  impending 
disaster  in  the  midst  of  imagined  safety — there  may  be  abomina- 
tion in  the  sight  of  God,  in  the  midst  of  highest  esteem  and  popu- 
larity among  men. 

There  is  nothing  in  the  daily  routine  of  this  world's  luxury,  or 
this  world's  covetousness,  or  this  world's  ambition,  which  suggests 
to  its  carnal  and  earth-born  children  the  conviction  of  s'nfulness. 


388  howe's  living  temple. 

The  round  of  pleasure  is  described,  or  the  career  of  adventure  is 
prosecuted,  or  the  path  of  aggrandizement  is  entered  upon ;  and 
it  does  not  once  meet  the  imagination  of  this  world's  votary,  that, 
in  every  one  of  these  pursuits,  he  is  widening  his  departure  from 
God.  lie  is  not  aware  of  the  deathly  character  of  his  habits  ; 
and,  protect  him  only  from  the  voice  of  human  execration,  he 
hears,  or  hears  without  alarm,  that  voice  of  truth  which  pro- 
nounces him  wholly  given  over  to  idolatry.  And  yet  can  any- 
thing be  more  evident,  even  of  the  most  harmless  and  reputable 
members  of  society,  than  that  the  gifts  of  a  kind  and  liberal 
Father  have  stolen  away  from  Him  the  affections  of  His  own 
children — than  that  they  have  taken  up  with  another  portion,  than 
with  Him  who  originates  and  sustains  them — than  that  they  have 
built  their  foundation  on  the  creature,  and  look  on  the  Creator 
with  the  defiance  at  least  of  unconcern  ?  They  in  reality  have 
disjoined  themselves  from  God.  Instead  of  being  conducted  by 
the  sight  of  the  world  to  the  thought  of  God,  they  look  no  further 
than  the  world,  and  it  stands  in  their  hearts  contrasted  with  God. 
Instead  of  the  one  leading  to  the  other,  the  one  detains  and  with- 
draws from  the  other.  They  are  so  conversant  with  the  world 
as  to  lose  sight  of  God.  For  this  we  can  appeal  to  the  conscience 
of  every  natural  man,  and  on  this  we  ground  the  affirmation,  that 
though  in  the  keen  pursuit  of  the  money  which  purchaseth  all 
things,  he  may  have  never  deviated  from  the  onward  path  of  in- 
tegrity, he  has  been  receding  by  every  footstep  to  a  greater  dis- 
tance from  heaven— and  with  an  eye  averted  from  God,  has  been 
looking  towards  those  things,  the  love  of  which  is  opposite  to  the 
love  of  the  Father. 

And  it  is  because  men  are  thus  engrossed  with  the  visible  ob- 
jects of  time,  that  they  have  lost  sight  of  their  own  individual  con- 
cern in  that  spiritual  kingdom  which  God  is  setting  up  in  the 
world.  Because  it  does  not  rank  among  the  visibilities  of  earth, 
it  is  looked  at  by  them  with  the  most  heedless  indifference,  and 
they  regard  its  existence  as  a  fiction  of  the  imagination.  The 
subject  of  that  kingdom  is  indeed  invisible.  It  worketh  its  silent 
and  unseen  way  through  the  world  of  souls,  and  it  may  be  mul- 
tiplying its  subjects,  and  widening  the  extent  of  its  dominion  every 
day,  Without  the  eye  of  man  being  able  to  perceive  it.  There  is 
a  day  of  revelation  coming  ;  and  the  hidden  things  which  are  to 
be  laid  open  on  that  day  are  the  secrets  of  the  heart.  But,  in  the 
meantime,  the  heart  is,  in  a  great  measure,  shut  up  from  observa- 
tion ;  and  many  of  its  movements  will  remain  unnoticed  and  un- 
known till  that  day  shall  discover  them.  And  we  are  expressly 
told,  that  that  greatest  of  all  movements,  by  which  it  turns  from 
Satan  unto  God,  is  a  hidden  operation.  It  is  said  of  the  Spirit, 
who  worketh  this  movement,  that  no  man  knoweth  whence  it 
cometh,  or  whither  it  goeth.  It  makes  its  noiseless  way  through 
streets  and  families.     The  visible  instrument  which  God  employs 


hovve's  living  temple.  389 

may  come  equally  to  all  who  are  within  its  reach ;  but  the  effect 
which  the  Spirit  giveth  to  that  instrument,  is  not  a  matter  of  di- 
rect perception,  nor  can  we  tell  who  the  individual  is  whose  heart 
it  will  ply  with  the  word  of  God,  so  as  to  give  all  the  weight  and 
power  of  a  hammer  breaking  the  rock  in  pieces.  O  how  much 
of  the  inner  man  remains  impenetrably  hidden  under  all  that  is 
visible  in  the  general  aspect  of  society !  To  man  himself  it  is  an 
unknown  field,  though  the  beings  who  are  above  man  have  all 
their  eyes  upon  it.  In  looking  to  human  affairs,  it  is  the  only  field 
they  deem  worthy  of  contemplation.  The  frail  and  fleeting  ma- 
terials of  common  history,  are  as  nothing  in  the  eye  of  those  who 
count  nothing  important  but  that  which  has  stamped  upon  it  the 
character  of  eternity.  To  recommend  it  to  them,  it  must  have 
the  attribute  of  endurance  ;  or,  in  other  words,  it  must  be  related 
to  souls,  which  are  the  only  subjects  in  this  world  that  God  hath 
endued  with  the  vigor  of  immortality.  Now  the  soul  of  man  is 
invisible  to  us.  nor  can  we  see,  as  through  a  window,  its  desires, 
and  its  movements,  and  its  silent  aspirations.  There  is  a  thick 
covering  of  sense  thrown  over  it ;  and  thus  it  is,  that  what,  to  the 
eye  of  angels,  appears  the  only  worthy  object  of  attention  in  the 
history  of  the  species,  is,  to  the  eye  of  man  himself,  an  unknown 
mystery.  His  eye  is  engrossed  with  the  glare  of  what  is  seen, 
and  of  what  is  sensible ;  and  the  secrecies  of  the  soul  lie  on  the 
background  of  his  contemplation  altogether.  He  knows  as  little 
about  the  busy  doings  which  go  on  in  the  heart  of  his  neighbor, 
as  he  knows  of  what  goes  on  on  the  surface  of  some  remote  and 
undiscovered  world.  In  the  wideness  of  immensity,  there  are 
fields  so  distant  as  to  be  beyond  the  ken  of  eye  or  of  telescope  ; 
but  there  is  also  a  field  immediately  around  us,  which  lies  wrapt 
in  unfathomable  secrecy.  O  it  is  little  dwelt  upon  by  man.  whose 
thoughts  are  so  taken  up  with  what  the  eye  seeth,  and  the  ear  can 
listen  to.  But  on  this  field  there  are  doings  of  mightier  import 
than  the  whole  visible  universe  lays  before  us.  It  forms  part  of 
the  world  of  spirits.  It  is  the  field  of  discipline  for  eternity.  It 
is  the  field  on  which  is  decided  the  fate  of  conscious  and  never- 
ending  existence.  It  is  a  province  in  the  moral  government  of 
God,  and  in  worth  outweighs  all  the  splendor  and  all  the  richness 
of  that  material  magnificence  which  is  around  us.  The  earth  is 
to  be  burned  up,  and  the  heavens  are  to  pass  away  as  a  scroll ; 
but  on  this  near,  though  unnoticed  field,  there  is  a  mighty  interest 
now  forming,  which  will  survive  the  wreck  of  all  that  is  visible : 
and  it  is  there  that  God  gains  accessions  to  his  kingdom  which  en- 
dureth  forever. 

But  there  are  two  remarks  by  which  we  would  limit  and  define 
the  extent  of  what  is  said  by  our  Saviour,  about  the  kingdom  of 
God  coming  not  with  observation.  It  holds  true  of  every  man  who 
becomes  the  subject  of  that  kingdom,  that  by  his  fruits  ye  shall 
know  him.     There  is  a  visible  style  of  conduct  which  bespeaks 


390  howe's  living  temple. 

him  to  be  a  different  man  from  others,  and  a  different  man  from 
what  he  himself  was  before  he  entered  into  the  kingdom  of  God. 
Let  the  reign  of  God  be  established  over  the  inner  man,  and  it  will 
tell,  and  tell  observably,  upon  the  doings  of  the  outer  man.  But 
remark  here,  that  though  the  kingdom  of  God  may  be  the  subject 
of  observation  where  it  exists,  yet  the  bringing  of  that  kingdom 
into  existence,  or,  in  other  words,  the  coming  of  that  kingdom  may 
not  be  with  observation.  Now,  what  is  true  of  an  individual,  is 
true  of  many.  The  formation  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  in  the  hearts 
of  the  majority  of  a  neighborhood,  would  give  rise  to  a  spectacle 
fitted  to  strike  the  general  eye  ;  and  there  is  something  broadly 
visible  in  the  complexion  of  a  renovated  and  moralized  people. 
There  is  a  change  of  aspect  in  the  doings  of  every  man  who  is 
born  again,  that  meets  the  observation  of  his  neighbors ;  and  a 
sufficient  number  of  such  men  would  give  rise  to  such  a  general 
change  as  to  solicit  general  observation.  But  though  the  change, 
after  it  is  established,  may  excite  their  notice,  yet  the  coming  on 
of  the  change  may  not  excite  their  notice.  The  steps  by  which 
it  is  accomplished  may  elude  the  notice  of  the  generality  alto- 
gether. The  little  stone  may  be  too  small  to  draw  upon  it  the  at- 
tention of  a  distant  world ;  but  it  may  compel  their  attention  by 
its  progress,  and  even  long  before  it  filleth  the  whole  earth,  the 
whole  earth  may  be  filled  with  inquiries  after  it.  The  work  of  the 
Spirit  is  visible,  but  the  working  of  the  Spirit  is  not  visible.  He 
bloweth  where  He  listeth  ;  and  though  the  kingdom  of  God,  that 
he  is  to  establish  in  the  world,  shall  swallow  up  all  the  rest,  and 
by  its  magnitude  force  itself  upon  the  general  observation,  yet,  in 
the  first  stages  of  its  progress,  and  in  the  act  of  coming,  it  may 
not  be  with  observation. 

Our  other  remark  is,  that  though  the  kingdom  of  God  cometh 
not  with  observation,  yet  by  the  prophecies  of  God,  the  origin  and 
the  sudden  enlargement  of  that  kingdom,  have  a  place  assigned  to 
them  in  the  march  of  visible  history.  The  four  great  monarchies 
form  conspicuous  eras  in  the  history  of  man.  They  come  with 
observation,  and  they  mark,  in  a  general  way,  the  infancy,  and  the 
growth,  and  the  matured  establishment  of  that  kingdom  which 
cometh  not  with  observation.  We  lie  at  the  feet  of  Nebuchad- 
nezzar's image.  This  is  the  place  in  the  descending  scale  of  ages 
which  we  occupy  ;  and  the  present  political  aspect  of  Europe  was 
seen  afar  by  the  prophet  Daniel  through  the  vista  of  many  genera- 
tions. The  ten  kingdoms  into  which  the  Roman  empire  was  di- 
vided, form  the  closing  scene  in  his  magnificent  representation  of 
futurity  ;  and  it  is  this  distant  period  which,  in  the  mighty  range 
of  his  prophetic  eye,  he  is  employed  in  contemplating,  when  he 
tells  us  of  a  kingdom  made  without  hands,  and,  from  the  size  of  a 
little  stone,  growing  into  a  mountain  which  filled  the  whole  earth. 
The  coming  of  these  ten  kingdoms  carried  on  it  a  broad  aspect, 
which  addressed  itself  to  the  senses  of  men.     They  were  ushered 


howe's  living  temple.  391 

in  with  all  the  notes  and  characters  of  preparation.  Kings  met, 
and  kings  combated  on  a  conspicuous  arena ;  the  loud  uproar  of 
the  battle  was  heard,  and  the  rumor  of  it  spread  itself;  and  each 
of  the  predicted  kingdoms  made  its  entrance  into  the  world,  with 
the  pomp,  and  the  circumstance,  and  the  visible  insignia  of  war. 
It  is  in  the  time  of  these  kingdoms  that  the  kingdom  of  God  is  to 
break  forth  on  every  side ;  and  the  want  of  those  visible  accom- 
paniments, which  mark  the  progress  and  the  establishment  of  other 
kingdoms,  signalizes  the  kingdom  of  God,  and  stamps  upon  it  the 
peculiar  character  of  coming  not  with  observation.  There  is  a 
silence  and  a  secrecy  in  the  progress  of  this  kingdom,  which  do 
not  belong  to  the  others.  It  has  its  signs  too,  but  they  are  not 
such  signs  as  the  Pharisees  were  looking  for,  when  they  asked 
about  the  kingdom  of  God,  and  about  the  signs  of  its  appearance. 
The  interpreters  of  prophecy  have  been  watching,  for  whole  cen- 
turies, all  the  variations  which  take  place  in  the  restless  politics  of 
this  world — they  have  been  pursuing  every  fluctuation  in  the  ever- 
changing  history  of  the  times, — but  the  ten  toes  of  Nebuchadnez- 
zar's image  still  represent  the  great  outline  of  European  society. 
It  is  not  in  the  revolutions  of  political  power  that  we  are  to  look 
for  the  direct  or  immediate  symptom  of  God's  approaching  king- 
dom. The  effect  of  that  kingdom  is  to  revolutionize  the  hearts  of 
men.  The  Alexander  of  a  former  day,  filled  with  generous  re- 
sentment at  the  wrongs  of  his  outraged  country,  and  gathering 
energy  from  despair,  and  marching  at  the  head  of  a  population  ral- 
lying around  the  standard  of  revenge,  out  of  all  his  provinces,  and 
aided  by  the  tempests  of  heaven,  might  have  overwhelmed  that 
power  which  had  spread  its  desolating  triumphs  over  half  the  mon- 
archies of  Europe.  But  all  this  might  have  been  done,  and  the 
little  stone  have  remained  all  the  while  stationary,  and  the  flock  of 
Christ  received  no  addition  to  its  numbers ;  and  should  the  same 
rapacity  of  ambition  exist  among  the  rulers  of  the  world,  and  the 
same  profligacy  among  the  people,  and  the  same  baleful  infidelity 
among  the  learned,  and  the  same  lofty  contempt  for  the  holy 
spirit  and  doctrines  of  the  Gospel  among  the  upper  classes  of 
society,  and  the  same  devotedness  to  the  good  things  of  life  spread- 
ing among  all  its  classes  a  spiritual  indifference  to  the  law  of  God, 
— then  the  kingdom  of  God  has  made  no  progress,  and  all  the 
characters  of  Antichrist  stand  as  deeply  engraved  as  ever  upon 
the  aspect  of  the  existing  generation.  But  should  the  heart  of  the 
present  Nicholas  receive  a  secret  visit  from  that  Spirit  which 
bloweth  where  He  listeth — should  it  be  turned,  with  all  its  affec- 
tions, to  the  Saviour  who  died  for  him — should  the  renewed  soul 
of  the  monarch  own  in  silent  reverence  the  power  of  a  higher 
monarchy,  and,  instead  of  his  plans  and  his  purposes  of  ambition 
and  war,  should  his  heart  be  filled  with  the  holy  ambition  of  ded- 
icating all  his  means  and  all  his  energies  to  the  spread  of  Chris- 
tianity in  the  world  ;  then,  in  the  solitude  of  his  inner  chamber,  an 


392  howe's  living  temple. 

unseen  preparation  might  be  going  on  for  helping  forward  the  es- 
tablishment of  the  kingdom  of  God ;  and  when  we  think  of  the 
small  place  which  these  doings  occupy  in  the  columns  of  a  gazette, 
or  in  the  deliberations  of  a  cabinet,  or  in  the  earnest  contemplation 
of  the  general  mind  in  Europe — above  all,  when  we  think  that  they 
are  chiefly  carried  on  by  men  who,  through  the  great  mass  of  so- 
ciety, are  derided  or  unknown — then  may  we  well  understand 
how  a  kingdom,  spreading  its  unseen  influence  through  such  pri- 
vate channels,  and  earning  all  its  triumphs  in  the  hearts  and  bosoms 
of  individuals,  is  a  kingdom  which  cometh  not  with  observation. 

We  may  easily  understand,  from  what  has  been  stated,  how 
inefficient  must  be  many  of  the  methods  which  are  actually  re- 
sorted to  for  extending  true  religion,  or  the  kingdom  of  God,  in 
the  world.  It  is  not  by  crusading  it  against  the  power  of  infidel 
governments,  that  you  will  establish  this  kingdom.  It  is  not  by 
enacting  it  against  the  heresy  of  unscriptural  opinions,  that  you 
will  carry  forward  the  establishment  of  this  kingdom.  It  is  not 
by  the  solemn  deliberations  of  a  legislature,  sitting  in  judgment 
over  questions  that  can  only  be  carried  into  effect  by  the  civil 
authority  of  the  state,  that  you  can  at  all  help  forward  the  estab- 
lishment of  this  kingdom  in  the  world.  We  will  venture  to  say, 
that  the  mad  enterprise  of  the  middle  ages  did  not  add  one  sub- 
ject to  the  kingdom  of  God.  They  may  have  stormed  the  holy 
citv,  so  as  to  plant  upon  its  battlements  the  standard  of  Chris- 
tendom ;  but  they  did  not  storm  a  single  human  heart,  so  as  to 
plant  within  it  a  principle  of  holiness.  The  citadel  of  the  heart 
must  be  plied  with  another  engine  ;  and  the  strong  man  who 
reigns  and  who  occupies  there,  may  smile,  and  may  sit  in  secure 
defiance  to  the  warlike  preparations  of  a  whole  continent.  No 
external  violence  of  any  kind  can  force  the  will  and  the  principle 
of  man  to  its  subserviency.  Whatever  effect  it  may  have  on  the 
territory  of  earthly  princes,  it  cannot  add  a  single  inch  to  the 
territory  of  the  kingdom  of  God  ;  and  that  whether  the  instru- 
ment of  religious  frenzy  be  an  army  or  a  parliament,  after  ex- 
pending all  its  force,  and  doing  nothing,  it  is  at  length,  by  the 
working  of  another  instrument,  and  the  silent  but  powerful  effi- 
cacy of  another  expedient,  that  we  make  a  way  for  the  establish- 
ment of  God's  Living  Temple  in  the  world. 

This  brings  us  to  the  question,  What  is  this  instrument  ?  The 
Spirit  of  God  is  the  agent  in  every  conversion  of  every  human 
soul  from  Satan  unto  God.  He  is  the  alone  effectual  worker  in 
this  matter,  but  He  worketh  by  instruments  ;  and  it  is  our  part  to 
put  them  in  readiness,  and  to  do  those  things  to  the  doing  of 
which  He  stands  pledged  to  impart  the  efficacy  of  His  all-subdu- 
ing influences.  It  was  the  Spirit,  and  He  alone,  who  gave  the 
apostles  all  the  enlargement  they  got  on  the  day  of  Pentecost : 
but  thev  put  themselves  in  readiness,  by  obeying  the  prescribed 
direction  to  go  to  Jerusalem ;  and  there  they  waited  and  they 


howe's  living  temple.  393 

prayed  for  the  promise  of  the  Father.  Had  they  not  been  at 
their  prescribed  post,  they  would  have  obtained  no  part  whatever 
in  the  promised  privilege  ;  and  in  like  manner  we,  with  every 
sentiment  of  dependence  on  the  power  of  the  Spirit,  should,  both 
for  ourselves  and  others,  do  those  things,  in  the  doing  of  which 
alone  we  have  reason  to  expect  that  He  will  come  down  with  all 
that  energy  of  impression,  and  all  that  richness  of  gift  and  of 
endowment,  which  belong  to  Him.  The  apostles  were  the  human 
instruments  for  the  dispensation  of  the  Spirit  in  those  days  ;  and 
we  cannot  do  better  than  to  take  our  lesson  from  them,  and  ob- 
serve what  they  had  to  do,  that  the  Spirit  of  God,  working  along 
with  them,  might  turn  the  hearts  of  men,  and  extend  the  proper 
kingdom  of  God  over  the  proper  ground  which  that  kingdom  has  to 
occupy.  They  laid  before  those  to  whom  they  addressed  them- 
selves the  word  of  God,  and  they  prayed  for  the  Spirit  of  God,  that 
He  might  take  hold  of  His  own  instrument,  and  make  it  bear  with 
effect  upon  the  consciences  and  the  understandings  of  men.  The 
lesson  is  a  short  one,  but  it  comprises  all  that  we  have  to  do  in  the 
work  of  extending  Christianity  through  the  world.  Be  it  on  our  own 
behalf,  and  with  a  view  to  bring  down  upon  our  own  souls  the 
benefits  of  the  Gospel,  and  the  best  thing  we  can  turn  ourselves 
to  is  to  read  diligently  the  Bible,  and  to  pray  diligently  for  that 
Spirit,  who  pours  the  brilliancy  of  a  warm  and  affecting  light 
over  all  its  pages.  Be  it  on  behalf  of  others,  and  with  a  view  to 
secure  to  them  the  benefits  of  the  Gospel,  then,  if  they  are  im- 
mediately around  us,  the  best  thing  we  can  do  is  to  ply  them  with 
the  instructions  of  the  Bible,  and  to  pray  for  the  coming  down 
of  that  power  which  can  alone  give  these  instructions  all  their 
efficacy.  Hence  the  stationary  apparatus  of  a  country  where 
Christianity  is  established — consisting  of  schools,  where  the  read- 
ing of  the  Bible  is  taught ;  and  churches,  where  the  meaning  of 
the  Bible  is  expounded  ;  and  official  men,  whose  business  it  is  to 
pray  themselves,  and  to  press  the  exercise  of  prayer  on  others,  to 
that  God  who  orders  intercession  in  behalf  of  all,  because  He 
willeth  all  to  be  saved.  But  should  it  be  in  behalf  of  men  who 
live  in  a  distant  country — and  the  precept  of  "  Go  and  preach  the 
Gospel  to  every  creature,"  gives  a  legitimacy  to  the  attempts  of 
Christianizing  them,  which  all  the  ridicule  and  all  the  wisdom  of 
this  world  cannot  overthrow — then  the  stationary  apparatus  be- 
comes a  movable  one  ;  and  the  word  of  God,  translated  into 
Jther  languages,  and  human  messengers  to  carry  that  word  and 
to  expound  it — and  Christians  abroad  to  spread  around  them  the 
message  of  salvation,  and  Christians  who  stay  at  home  praying  to 
the  God  of  all  influence,  and  giving  Him  no  rest  till  He  pour  such 
a  blessing  on  other  lands  that  there  shall  be  no  room  to  receive  it. 
This  lays  before  us  the  godly  apparatus,  which  we  rejoice  to  ob- 
serve is  in  growing  operation  among  the  men  of  the  present  day ; 
and  while  Bible  Societies,  and  Missionary  Societies,  and  Praving 

49 


394  howe's  living  temple. 

Societies,  have  the  full  cry  of  ridicule  discharged  upon  them  by 
the  men  of  the  world — while  the  disgrace  of  an  obscure  and  con- 
temptible fanaticism  is  made  to  lie  upon  all  these  operations — 
while  the  affairs  of  temporal  kingdoms,  and  the  fluctuations  of 
their  ever-veering  politics,  fill  up  the  columns  of  every  newspaper, 
and  form  the  talk  of  every  company — there  are  holy  men  now 
dealing  with  the  hearts  and  the  principles  of  the  people  in  our 
own  country,  and  of  savages  in  distant  lands  ;  and  amid  all  the 
noisy  contempt  and  resistance  they  have  gathered  around  them, 
with  the  sanction  of  apostolical  example,  and  the  persevering  use 
of  apostolical  instruments,  are  they  working  their  silent,  but  effec- 
tual way  to  the  magnificent  result,  and  the  final  establishment  of 
the  kingdom  of  God  in  the  world. 

And  thus  it  is,  that  men  become  themselves  living  temples  of 
God,  and  that  God's  living  temple,  his  spiritual  kingdom,  is  ex- 
tended and  established  throughout  the  world.  And  we  cannot 
better  reply  to  the  question,  What  is  the  best  instrument  for  pro- 
moting and  extending  the  kingdom  of  God  in  the  world  ?  than  by 
referring  our  readers  to  the  following  Treatise  of  John  Howe, 
"  The  Living  Temple,  or  a  Good  Man  the  Temple  of  God." 
This  Treatise,  which  we  have  introduced  to  the  notice  of  our 
readers,  is  less  known  to  the  Christian  public  than  some  of  the 
other  productions  of  this  celebrated  author.  It  is  not  because  that, 
either  in  itself  or  in  its  subject,  it  possesses  less  worth  or  less  im- 
portance than  those  pieces  of  this  author,  which  are  better  known 
and  have  acquired  greater  popularity — for,  in  respect  to  both,  it 
holds  a  high  rank  among  the  numerous  and  valuable  productions 
of  this  much-admired  writer.  But  we  apprehend  the  reason  of 
its  not  obtaining  such  general  circulation,  arises  from  the  circum- 
stance of  the  main  subject  of  the  Treatise — the  formation  of  God's 
Living  Temple  in  the  world — being  intermingled  with  his  length- 
ened and  elaborate  demonstrations  of  the  existence  of  God — and 
from  his  profound  and  metaphysical  controversies  with  Spinoza 
and  the  French  infidels,  respecting  the  uncreated  Being,  and  the 
eternal  self-existence  of  the  Deity,  extending  through  nearly  half 
the  original  Treatise.  And,  though  we  hold  this  profound  and 
erudite  exposure  of  atheism,  to  contain  the  most  perfect  and  un- 
answerable demonstration  of  the  existence  of  a  God  with  which 
we  are  acquainted — yet  the  deep  and  metaphysical  character  of 
his  argumentation,  renders  it  too  occult  and  abstruse  to  be  easily 
apprehended  by  ordinary  readers  ;  and  thus  is  it  fitted  to  r.epel 
them  from  entering  on  a  piece  of  superlative  excellence.  It  was 
under  this  conviction,  and  to  render  the  Treatise  more  acceptable 
and  useful  to  the  Christian  public,  that  we  have  divested  the  pres- 
ent edition  of  those  elaborate  disquisitions,  into  which  he  had  been 
drawn  by  the  French  infidels,  and  which  were  extraneous  to  the 
specific  design  of  the  work,  and  have  only  presented  our  leaders 
with  what  relates  to  the  author's  main  subject — the  method  by 


howe's  living  temple.  395 

which  the  reign  of  truth  and  holiness  is  established  in  the  hearts 
of  men,  in  order  to  their  becoming  temples  of  the  Living  God. 

To  those  who  desiderate  a  full  and  comprehensive  exhibition  of 
the  Gospel  scheme,  for  the  restoration  of  our  fallen  and  apostate 
race  to  the  lost  image  and  communion  of  the  Godhead,  we  would 
recommend  this  invaluable  Treatise  to  their  perusal.  He  gives  a 
deeply  affecting,  but  justly  descriptive  representation  of  the  apos- 
tasy, and  consequent  ruin  and  depravity  of  man,  in  his  melancholy 
but  magnificent  delineation  of  the  ruined,  desolate,  and  forsaken 
condition  of  that  noble  Living  Temple,  where  God  once  dwelt, 
and  which  was  once  blessed  and  beautified  by  the  Divine  Pres- 
ence. And  he  gives  a  no  less  powerful  and  scriptural  represen- 
tation of  the  wisdom  and  glory,  of  the  plans  and  purposes,  of  the 
Divine  Mind,  for  the  rebuilding  of  this  fallen  and  deserted  temple 
by  Emmanuel,  that  God  might,  in  perfect  consistency  with  the 
holiness  and  righteousness  of  His  august  government,  again  taber- 
nacle with  man — and  that  the  love,  and  the  loyalty,  and  the  obedi- 
ence which  were  due  to  Heaven's  great  Monarch,  might  be  re- 
established in  the  hearts  of  men,  in  order  that  they  might  again 
be  restored  to  that  blissful  communion  and  intercourse  with  God 
which  they  had  forfeited  by  their  apostasy.  And  who  can  esti- 
mate the  might  and  the  magnitude  of  that  great  undertaking,  by 
which  Emmanuel  achieved  the  restoration  of  this  ruined  temple  ? 
How  the  temple  of  His  own  body  had  to  be  destroyed,  that  by 
His  sufferings  and  death  He  might  expiate  the  guilt  of  an  apos- 
tate world — and  make  reparation  for  the  offence  done  to  Heaven's 
righteous  government — and  effect  a  reconciliation  between  God 
and  His  alienated  creatures — and  obtain  the  communication  of  the 
Holy  Spirit  to  renovate  and  adorn  this  desolated  ruin,  that  the 
great  Inhabitant  might  return  and  again  occupy  His  long-deserted 
temple.  It  is  because  men  are  insensible  to  the  extent  of  the  ruin 
and  the  desolation  which  sin  has  effected,  that  they  are  so  insen- 
sible to  the  greatness  of  that  deliverance  which  the  Saviour  had 
to  achieve  lor  the  restoration  of  man  to  the  enjoyment  of  the  Di- 
vine Presence. 

To  establish  the  reign  of  truth  and  holiness  in  the  hearts  of  men, 
and  thus  to  render  them  fit  temples  for  the  Divinity,  is  the  grand 
and  ultimate  design  of  God  in  that  wonderful  dispensation  which 
is  revealed  in  the  Gospel.  O  it  is  little  thought  of  by  men,  in 
whose  hearts  the  god  of  this  world  has  established  his  reign,  what 
a  mighty  change  must  be  effected  ere  they  become  living  temples 
of  God  !  It  is  because  they  are  so  insensible  to  the  nature  and 
extent  of  the  ruin,  that  they  are  so  insensible  to  the  magnitude  of 
that  change  which  they  must  undergo  ere  they  become  fit  for  the 
divine  residence.  It  is  not  a  repair,  but  a  rebuilding.  It  is  not  a 
reform,  but  a  thorough  regeneration.  It  is  fearful  to  think  of  the  de- 
lusion which  prevails  in  the  great  mass  of  society  respecting  this 
mighty  change.    It  is  not  merely  the  infidel  and  the  practical  atheist, 


396  howe's  living  temple. 

to  whom  Howe  so  well  addresses  the  language  of  terror  and  alarm, 
that  require  to  be  awakened.  When  we  think  of  the  spiritless  in- 
difference, and  cold  irreligion  of  many  professors  of  Christianity 
— when  we  think  of  the  lukewarm  decencies,  and  heartless  con- 
formities, of  many  who  profess  their  attachment  to  the  Saviour — 
and  compare  them  with  that  spirituality  of  mind,  and  renovation 
of  heart,  which  this  excellent  author  so  well  sets  forth,  as  consti- 
tuting the  Living  Temple,  it  may  well  alarm  the  consciences  of 
many  a  decent  and  reputable  professor  of  the  Gospel.  And  it 
ought  to  reach  conviction  to  the  heart  of  many,  whose  com- 
placency in  their  own  state  has  never  been  disturbed,  that,  amidst 
the  many  earth-born  qualities  and  endowments  with  their  character 
in  society  is  adorned — while  their  hearts  are  devoted  to  earthliness, 
and  the  world  forms  the  object  of  their  idolatrous  affections — they 
are  still  unfit  for  the  divine  residence,  and  are  living  without  God 
in  the  world. 

Now,  it  is  the  scriptural  view  of  the  magnitude  of  the  change 
that  is  implied  in  becoming  a  Christian,  which  makes  Christian- 
ity, in  the  entire  sense  of  the  term,  so  revolting  both  to  the  pride 
and  the  sagacity  of  nature.  It  looks  so  wild  and  impossible  an 
enterprise  to  draw  away  the  affections  from  that  which  appears 
to  give  life  and  motion  to  the  whole  of  human  industry.  The  de- 
mand appears  so  extravagant,  when  asked  to  renounce  our  liking 
for  what  all  men  like — and  we  appear  to  be  pushing  the  exactions 
of  religion  so  unreasonably  far,  when  we  represent  it  as  incom- 
patible with  the  love  of  wealth,  or  grandeur,  or  animal  gratifica- 
tion— that  to  the  eye  of  many  a  cool  and  sober-minded  citizen,  it 
appears  in  the  light  of  a  very  unlikely  speculation.  With  the 
eye  of  a  strong  practical  understanding,  much  and  judiciously 
exercised  in  the  realities  of  business,  he  regards  the  man  of  such 
lofty  and  spiritual  lessons  as  a  visionary  altogether — but  he 
shrewdly  guesses  that  there  is  no  danger  of  obtaining  many  real 
disciples  to  a  system,  so  utterly  at  variance  with  the  most  urgent 
principles  of  the  human  constitution. 

Now,  to  repel  the  contempt,  and  also  the  apparent  common 
sense  of  all  this  resistance,  we  might  easily  demonstrate,  that 
without  any  mitigation  whatever  of  the  spirit  of  Christianity,  the 
service  of  God  would  still  remain  a  reasonable  service.  But  we 
shall  content  ourselves  with  urging  upon  you  one  argument  which 
the  Bible  furnishes,  which  is,  that  the  world  passeth  away,  and 
the  lust  thereof.  There  is  a  result  pointed  to  here,  ye  sage  and 
calculating  men,  who  are  looking  so  intently  forward  to  the  result 
of  your  varied  speculations.  There  is  an  event  which  is  surely 
coming  upon  you  all,  and  which  will  put  to  shame  all  the  glory  of 
secular  wisdom,  and  hurry  to  a  prostrate  ruin  all  the  might  and 
magnificence  of  your  grovelling  enterprises.  In  a  few  little  years, 
and  time  will  arbitrate  this  question.  It  will  tell  us  who  is  the 
visionary — he  who  is  wise  for  this  world,  or  he  who  is  wise  for 


howe's  living  temple.  397 

eternity.  A  day  is  coming,  when  the  busy  ambition  of  your  lives 
will  all  be  broken  up — when  death  will  smile,  in  ghastly  contempt, 
over  the  vanity  of  earthly  affections — when,  summoning  you  away 
from  this  warm  and  comfortable  dwelling-place,  he  will  call  your 
body  to  its  grave,  and  your  spirit  to  its  reckoning — and  upon  the 
falling  down  of  that  screen  which  separates  the  two  worlds,  will 
it  appear  that  the  man  who  has  sought  his  portion  among  the 
schemes,  and  the  pursuits,  and  the  passing  shadows  of  our  present 
state,  was  indeed  the  visionary.  With  this  element  of  compu- 
tation do  we  neutralize  all  the  contempt  which  nature  feels  and 
nature  expresses  against  the  abstractions  of  a  spiritual  Christian- 
ity— and  pronounce  of  him  who  disowns  it,  that  he  is  indeed  the 
blind  and  pitiable  maniac,  wasting  himself  upon  trifles,  and  lost 
and  bewildered  among  the  frivolities  of  an  idiot's  dream. 

On  entering  some  busy  place  of  commercial  intercourse,  and 
perceiving  what  it  is  that  forms  the  ruling  desire  of  every  heart, 
and  the  ruling  topic  of  every  conversation — and  feeling  the  re- 
sistless evidence  that  is  before  him,  of  the  world  being  the  resting- 
place  of  every  individual,  and  its  perishable  objects  forming  all 
that  they  long  for,  and  all  that  they  labor  after — and,  at  the  same 
time,  observing  what  a  face  of  respectable  intelligence  is  thus 
lavished  on  the  pursuits  of  earthliness — a  Christian  looker-on  can- 
not but  feel  the  strength  of  that  discountenance  which  is  thus  laid 
on  the  views  and  the  principles  of  spiritual  men.  The  vast  aggre- 
gate of  mind  and  of  example  in  the  world  appears  to  be  against 
him  ;  and  he  feels  as  if  left  alone  to  his  own  visionary  speculation, 
a  gaze  of  universal  contempt  was  directed  against  that  peculiar- 
ity, in  which  he  meets  so  few  to  share  and  to  sympathize  with 
him.  But  let  him  only  look  a  little  further  on,  and  this  will  both 
revive  his  confidence,  and  retort  on  the  whole  opposing  species 
the  very  charge  by  which  he  was  well  nigh  overwhelmed.  In  a 
few  years,  and  all  that  is  visible  of  the  mass  of  life,  and  thought, 
and  ambition,  that  is  before  him,  will  be  a  mouldering  mass  of  dust 
and  rottenness  in  the  churchyard.  There  is  evermore  a  rapid 
transference  of  that  living  crowd,  one  by  one,  from  the  place  of 
business  to  the  place  of  burial.  In  a  few  years,  and  the  transfer- 
ence will  be  completed,  and  every  one  of  these  intense,  and  eager, 
and  speculative  beings,  shall  have  disappeared  from  this  busy 
scene,  and  shall  have  gone  to  share  in  the  still  more  awfully  inter- 
esting and  important  scenes  of  eternity. 


INTRODUCTORY  ESSAY 

TO 

THE    SELECT    LETTERS 

OP   THE 

REV.  WILLIAM  ROMAINE,  A.M. 


In  our  former  Essay  to  Mr.  Romaine's  Treatises  on  the  Life, 
Walk,  and  Triumph  of  Faith,  we  observed,  that  the  great  and 
unceasing  topics  on  which  he  delighted  to  expatiate  were,  the 
atoning  blood  and  perfect  righteousness  of  Christ,  as  forming  the 
great  and  only  foundation  of  his  hope  and  of  his  confidence  to- 
wards God.  These  important  doctrines  of  the  Christian  faith, 
form  the  no  less  favorite  and  oft-recurring  theme  which  pervades, 
and  is  diffused  through  the  whole  texture  of  the  excellent  Letters 
of  which  the  present  volume  is  composed.  And  though  they 
may  not  be  fitted  to  stimulate  the  understanding,  or  to  regale  the 
fancy  of  the  merely  intellectual  reader  ;  yet,  to  the  simple-hearted 
and  spiritually-minded  Christian,  these  precious  and  consoling 
truths,  however  frequently  presented,  will  be  felt  in  all  the  fresh- 
ness and  power  of  their  peace-making,  holy,  and  regenerating 
influence.  In  this  respect,  he  imitated  the  example  of  the  great 
apostle  of  the  Gentiles,  who  expressed  his  determination  to  know 
nothing  among  his  people  "  save  Jesus  Christ  and  Him  crucified." 

We  have  frequently  insisted  on  one  great  claim  that  the  doc- 
trine of  Christ  crucified  has  upon  our  attention  ;  namely,  that,  by 
the  knowledge  of  it,  we  obtain  deliverance  from  the  greatest 
calamity  which  hangs  over  our  species  ;  and  that  is,  the  curse  of 
God's  violated  law,  with  all  the  pains  and  penalties  which  are 
consequent  thereupon.  We  shall,  in  our  following  observations, 
advert  to  another  mighty  claim  which  the  same  doctrine  has  upon 
our  attention  ;  namely,  that,  by  the  knowledge  of  it,  we  farther 
obtain  the  meritorious,  or  the  rightful  possession  of  God's  favor  ; 
so  that  we  do  not  simply  enter  upon  the  bliss  of  eternity  as  hav- 
ing become  ours  in  fact,  and  by  a  mere  deed  of  generosity,  but 
we  enter  upon  it  as  having  become  ours  in  equity,  and  by  a  deed 
of  justice.     Through  Christ  crucified  we  acquire  a  title  to  heaven 


romaine's  select  letters.  399 

as  our  reward,  and  that  as  much  as  if  we  ourselves  had  done  that 
stipulated  work,  for  which  heaven  was  rendered  to  us  as  the 
stipulated  wages :  and  this  is  a  very  different  footing  from  that 
of  the  bare  conveyance  of  a  gift,  for  it  is  a  conveyance  that  is 
secured  and  shielded  by  the  guarantees  of  a  covenant ;  so  as  to 
make  it,  not  a  mere  act  of  mercy,  but  an  act  of  righteousness  for 
God  to  bestow  ;  and  we,  in  receiving,  lay  hold  not  merely  of  a 
donative,  but  also  of  our  due. 

Now,  there  are  many  who  do  not  perceive  that  this  second 
privilege,  of  being  instated,  through  Christ  crucified,  in  a  right- 
eousness before  God,  is  essentially  distinct  from  the  former  priv- 
ilege, that  of  being  delivered  from  guilt.  They  contemplate  the 
whole  of  a  sinner's  reconciliation  with  God,  as  one  general  benefit 
coming  out  of  the  atonement  that  has  been  rendered  for  him  on 
the  cross,  and  which  does  not  admit  of  being  severed  into  parts, 
as  has  been  done  by  the  adepts  of  an  artificial  and  scholastic 
theology.  They  are  not  disposed  to  look  separately  to  our  being 
freed  from  condemnation,  and  so  rescued  from  hell  ;  and  to  our 
being  vested  with  a  positive  righteousness,  and  so  made  the  right- 
ful heirs  and  expectants  of  heaven.  They  would  rather  abide  by 
their  habit  of  viewing  the  gift  that  is  by  Jesus  Christ  as  one  and 
indivisible  ;  and  regard  the  attempt  to  decompose  it  into  ingre- 
dients, more  as  a  subtilty  of  human  invention,  than  as  the  dictate 
of  a  mind  that  has  been  soundly  and  scripturally  informed.  And 
thus  would  they  treat  lightly  the  distinction  that  has  been  so 
much  urged  by  some  theologians,  between  the  passive  and  the 
active  obedience  of  Christ ;  or  between  the  efficacy  of  the  one  to 
redeem  from  the  incurred  penalty,  and  the  efficacy  of  the  other 
to  reinstate  in  the  forfeited  reward  ;  between  the  tendency  of 
His  sufferings  to  avert  all  the  wrath  of  the  Divinity,  and  so  to 
turn  away  from  us  the  displeasure  under  which  we  lay,  and  the 
tendency  of  His  services  to  restore  to  us  the  forfeited  reward, 
and  so  transfer  to  us,  for  whom  these  services  were  undertaken, 
God's  favor  and  kindness,  as  much  as  if  they  had  been  rendered 
in  our  own  person  and  by  our  own  performances.  This  attempt 
to  mark  off  the  mediatorship  of  Christ  into  two  great  depart- 
ments, has  been  branded  as  an  attempt  to  be  wise  above  that 
which  is  written  ;  and,  when  pursued  into  the  still  greater  nicety 
of  endeavoring  to  trace  and  to  follow  it  throughout  the  line  of 
demarcation  that  is  betwixt  them,  then  has  the  whole  speculation 
been  denounced  as  one  that  ministers  questions  of  strife  rather 
than  of  godly  edifying,  and  to  which  we  cannot  turn  aside,  with- 
out being  involved  in  perverse  disputings,  and  the  jangling  of  vain 
controversy. 

Now,  we  fully  participate  in  this  dislike  at  all  such  metaphysics 
of  theology,  as  minister  nothing  in  the  way  of  comfort,  or  of  di- 
rection, or  of  salutary  influence  to  the  plain  mind  of  a  plan  and 
practical  inquirer.     And  therefore  we  shall  attempt  nothing  at 


400 


ROMAINE  S    SELECT    LETTERS. 


present  that  is  not  quite  broad  and  palpable,  and  shall  avoid  every- 
thing that  would  require  an  eye  of  very  minute  or  microscopic 
discrimination.  It  may  be  a  matter  of  no  great  usefulness  so  to 
arrange  and  to  classify  the  privileges  of  a  believer,  as  accurately 
to  refer  each  to  the  distinct  services  by  which  Christ  hath  insured 
it  for  those  who  put  their  trust  in  Him.  But  surely  it  is  of  im- 
portance to  know  what  these  privileges  are,  and  for  this  purpose 
to  make  them  the  objects,  if  not  of  any  acute  or  subtile  exercise 
of  the  understanding,  at  least  of  simple  enumeration.  And  we 
should  feel  as  if  much  had  been  left  untold,  were  we  not  made  to 
know  that  Christ  hath  brought  in  an  everlasting  righteousness,  as 
well  as  finished  transgressions,  and  made  an  end  of  sins — that  He 
hath  won  for  us  the  reward  of  heaven,  as  well  as  averted  from 
us  the  vengeance  of  hell — that  He  hath  not  only  redeemed  us 
from  the  sentence  of  death,  but  hath  built  up  for  us  a  title  unto  life 
everlasting — that,  besides  expunging  our  name  from  the  book  of 
condemnation,  He  hath  graven  it  in  the  book  of  life — that,  instead 
of  standing  before  God  simply  as  acquitted  creatures,  and  there- 
fore preserved  from  the  place  of  condemnation,  we  stand  before 
Him  in  the  robe  of  another's  righteousness,  and  therefore  with 
the  investiture  of  such  an  order  of  merit,  as  makes  it  fit  that  we 
should  be  translated  to  a  high  place  of  favor  and  of  dignity.  We 
want  not  to  probe  and  to  penetrate  into  the  hidden  intricacies  of 
the  question.  But  surely,  if  to  be  simply  dismissed  from  the  bar 
at  which  we  stood  as  arraigned  criminals  be  one  thing,  and  it  be 
another  to  be  thence  preferred  to  a  title  of  renown,  or  to  some 
station  wherewith  happiness  and  honor  await  us  near  the  palace 
of  our  sovereign,  then  it  concerns  us  to  know  that  there  is  a  justi- 
fication as  well  as  an  atonement;  that  there  is  a  righteousness  as 
well  as  a  redemption;  that  Christ  hath  done  more  than  advance 
us  to  the  negative  or  midway  condition  of  mere  innocence  ;  that 
He  hath  wrought  out  for  us  a  mightier  transition  than  to  a  state 
of  exemption  from  the  torments  of  the  accursed ;  that  He  hath 
not  only  retrieved  our  condition,  but  hath  reversed  it,  utterly 
changing  the  character  of  our  eternity,  and  turning  it  from  an  eter- 
nity of  torment  to  an  eternity  of  triumph — having  both  borne  the 
full  weight  of  our  sufferings  by  taking  on  Himself  the  guilt  of  our 
sins,  and  having  given  us  of  His  own  righteousness,  as  our  pass- 
port and  title-deed  to  the  glories  of  paradise. 

And  this  view  is  not  without  warrant  and  authority  from  Scrip- 
ture. The  redemption  which  is  through  the  blood  of  Christ  is  the 
forgiveness  of  sins.  The  righteousness  of  Christ,  which  is  made 
to  rest  on  all  who  believe,  brings  along  with  it  a  title  to  positive 
favor,  which  is  something  more  than  forgiveness.  The  creditor 
who  cancels  our  debt,  does  us  a  distinct  and  additional  good,  when, 
furthermore,  he  puts  the  deeds  or  the  documents  into  our  hands 
by  which  we  are  constituted  the  rightful  claimants  of  any  given 
property.     And  so  Christ,  in  one  place,  is  represented  as  a  surety 


bomaine's  select  letters.  401 

for  the  sins  of  those  who  believe  in  Him  ;  and  in  another,  as  hav- 
ing purchased  for  them  an  inheritance,  to  which  they,  and  they 
alone,  have  the  right  of  entry  and  of  possession.  Moreover,  we 
read  of  Christ  being  "  delivered  for  our  offences,  and  raised  again 
for  our  justification ;"  or,  that  by  His  death  He  made  atonement 
for  sin  ;  and  by  His  resurrection  He  re-entered  heaven,  and  is 
there  employed  in  preparing  those  mansions  by  which  are  re- 
warded the  righteousness  of  those  who  believe  in  Him.  One  fruit 
of  the  mediation  of  Christ  is  said  to  be  peace  with  God.  But  not 
only  so,  writes  the  apostle  ;  in  addition  to  having  drawn  back  His 
hostility,  He  sends  forth  upon  us  His  loving-kindness.  And  hence 
another  fruit  of  the  mediation  is,  that  we  have  access  to  the  grace 
wherein  we  stand.  Yet  it  must  be  owned,  that,  notwithstanding 
the  real  distinction  which  there  is  between  release  from  a  penalty 
and  admittance  to  a  positive  reward,  and  the  corresponding  dis- 
tinction that  has  been  made  by  theologians,  between  the  passive 
obedience  of  Christ,  by  which  it  is  held  that  the  one  has  been 
averted,  and  the  active  obedience  of  Christ,  by  which  it  is  held  that 
the  other  has  been  rightfully  earned  for  us, — it  must  be  owned,  we 
say,  notwithstanding,  that  it  is  the  obedience  of  Christ  unto  the  death 
which  seems  to  have  formed  the  main  price,  not  only  of  all  the  im- 
munities, but  of  all  the  privileges  that  believers  enjoy.  It  was  from 
His  death  that  the  incense  of  a  sweet-smelling  savor  arose  unto  God. 
It  was  because  of  His  death  that  God  highly  exalted  Him,  and  gave 
Him  a  name  above  every  name.  It  was  from  the  grave  that  He 
ascended,  rich  in  the  spoils  of  a  superabundant  merit,  wherewith 
He  decks  and  dignifies  all  His  followers.  And  thus  there  is  not 
only  a  remission,  but  a  righteousness  that  has  been  wrought  out 
by  the  expiation  on  the  cross.  It  was  there  that  He  became  sin 
for  us,  though  He  knew  no  sin  ;  and  it  was  also  in  virtue  of  what 
has  been  done  there,  that  we  are  made  the  righteousness  of  God 
in  Him.  The  hope  of  our  glory,  as  well  as  the  price  of  our  de- 
liverance, stands  connected  with  the  knowledge  of  Jesus  Christ 
and  Him  crucified. 

We  affirm  it  to  be  of  the  very  essence  of  Gospel  mercy,  that, 
instead  of  a  mere  demonstration  of  Heaven's  love,  there  went  along 
with  it  a  full  demonstration  of  Heaven's  righteousness — that  it 
rendered  glory  to  the  law,  and  by  the  very  act  wherewith  it  ren- 
dered grace  unto  those  who  had  trampled  on  the  law.  The  for- 
giveness that  is  unto  the  sinner  under  this  dispensation,  bears  upon 
it  an  awful  character  of  sacredness  and  majesty — seeing  that  it 
never  could  have  issued  on  a  guilty  world  but  through  the  chan- 
nel of  a  consecrated  priesthood,  and  with  the  blood  of  a  divine  ex- 
piation. There  is  pity  on  high  to  the  children  of  men — but  it  is 
pity  enshrined  in  holiness,  and  to  which  there  is  no  other  way  of 
access  than  by  the  safeguards  of  a  government  that  is  unchange- 
able. We  cannot  come  unto  the  throne  of  grace  but  through  a 
mediatorship,  where  at  once  may  be  seen  the  manifested  truth 

51 


402  R'iM.\;\k':;  sf.!,i:<:t   loiters. 

and  vindicated  justice  of  the  Godhead — nor  can  we  obtain  the  com- 
passion of  our  offended  Lawgiver,  without  knocking  at  the  door 
of  a  sactuary,  where  dwell,  in  still  unviolated  purity  and  great- 
ness, all  the  wondrous  attributes  that  belong  to  Him. 

Now,  this  is  what  we  hold  to  be  the  leading  and  the  character- 
istic peculiarity  of  the  dispensation  under  which  we  live.  All  that 
we  receive  is,  doubtless,  in  the  way  of  a  gift — and  yet  it  is  a  gift 
for  which  a  price  has  been  rendered,  so  as  to  make  it  legally  and 
rightfully  ours.  The  penalty  is  remitted  to  us,  but  not  till  it  was 
paid  down,  as  it  were,  by  another's  sufferings.  Heaven  has  been 
granted  to  us,  but  not  till  it  was  purchased  by  another's  services. 
So  that  the  believer  has  not  merely  privileges  simply  and  gratui- 
tously conferred  upon  him  ;  but  he  is  invested  with  a  right  to  these 
privileges.  He  can  lay  claim  to  them  as  a  thing  of  obligation — 
not  in  virtue  of  any  equivalent  that  has  been  rendered  by  himself, 
but  in  virtue  of  a  full  equivalent  that  has  been  rendered  by  another. 
When  eternal  life  is  bestowed  upon  us,  it  is  not  in  the  shape  of  a 
bare  donative,  the  fruit  of  a  movement  of  generosity  alone.  It  is  a 
reward  granted  to  us  on  consideration  of  a  righteousness,  although 
that  righteousness  is  not  properly  and  personally  ours.  Still,  it 
is  the  fulfilment  of  a  stipulation — the  implementing  of  a  contract 
or  a  covenant  between  parties ;  and  when  man  enters  upon  his 
blissful  eternity,  he  only  takes  possession  of  that  which  is  his  due, 
and  which  God  hath  bound  Himself,  as  by  the  conditions  of  a 
treaty,  to  award  unto  him. 

And  here  it  is  of  importance  to  mark — how  much  more  secure 
our  hope  of  heaven  is,  when  laid  upon  such  a  foundation.  Had 
the  sinner  nothing  else  to  build  upon  than  the  single  attribute  of 
mercy,  well  might  he  dread  the  outbreaking  upon  his  person  of 
the  other  attributes,  and  feel  the  perpetual  disturbance  of  fears 
and  of  jealousies  in  his  bosom,  as  he  bethought  him  of  the  majesty 
of  God,  and  the  unchangeable  recoil  of  a  nature  that  could  hold 
no  fellowship  with  evil.  Now,  how  it  must  overrule  these  ter- 
rors, when,  with  the  righteousness  of  Christ  as  a  plea  put  into  his 
hand,  he  now  finds  even  the  most  menacing  attributes  of  the  Di- 
vinity enlisted  on  the  side  of  his  salvation.  Were  his  hopes  sus- 
pended singly  on  the  pity  of  God,  while  the  question  of  all  his 
other  perfections  was  yet  undisposed  of,  there  would  still  be  room 
in  the  sinner's  heart  for  many  doubts  and  many  disquietudes. 
But  how  it  must  allay  all  these,  and  what  firmness  it  must  give  to 
his  anticipations  of  heaven,  when,  instead  of  vaguely  trusting  for 
it  to  the  indulgence  of  God,  he  in  Christ  hath  acquired  a  distinct 
and  a  well-defined  right  to  it.  He  is  like  the  man  who  at  first 
eyed  some  beautiful  estate  with  fond  and  foolish  expectation,  be- 
cause of  the  reported  generosity  of  him  who  owned  it — but  who 
afterwards  had  the  title-deed  put  into  his  hand,  on  which  he  might 
challenge  the  property  as  his  own,  and  step  into  the  secure  and 
undisputed  possession  of  it.     And  thus  may  a  Christian  look  for- 


romaine's  select  letters.  403 

ward  to  heaven.  He  can  plead  a  right  for  it.  He  can  argue  in 
his  behalf  a  purchase-money  that  is  commensurate  to  the  pur- 
chase. He  can  speak  of  a  value  that  has  been  given,  and  which 
is  adequate  to  the  value  that  he  expects.  And  he  lives  beneath 
his  privileges — he  is  insensible  to  the  whole  worth  and  security 
of  his  condition,  if  his  spirit  do  not  rest  and  be  at  ease  among  the 
guarantees  of  a  sure  and  a  well-ordered  covenant— and  if,  while 
he  rejoices  in  the  gift  of  his  coming  inheritance,  he  do  not  fortify 
his  trust  by  thinking  well  of  the  soundness  and  the  equity  of  his 
claim  to  it. 

But  while  we  like  to  say  everything  to  a  believer  that  should 
minister  to  the  stability  of  his  confidence,  we  would  say  nothing 
that  could  minister  to  his  pride,  or  excite  a  sense  of  haughty  inde- 
pendence in  his  bosom.  It  is  not  as  if  he  defied  God,  and  entered 
with  Him  on  a  field  of  litigation.  It  is  not  as  if  he  challenged, 
and  with  a  tone  of  resolute  assertion,  that  which  he  felt  to  be 
rightfully  his  own,  and  demanded  it  accordingly.  What  might 
disarm  him  of  this  spirit  altogether  is,  that  though  now  possessed 
of  a  right  to  the  citizenship  of  heaven,  the  right  was  not  won  by 
himself,  but  conferred  upon  him  by  a  Mediator.  It  is  not  an  in- 
herent, but  a  derived  privilege,  and  for  which  he  stands  indebted 
to  another's  bounty.  What,  we  ask,  are  the  suitable  feelings 
with  which  he  ought  to  prosecute  his  claim  upon  God,  when,  in 
fact,  God  was  the  Being  who  furnished  him  with  this  claim  against 
himself?  God  so  loved  the  world,  as  to  send  His  Son  into  it,  that 
He  might  legalize  a  place  and  a  possession  in  heaven  for  all  who 
believe  on  Him.  Should  the  lorldly  proprietor  make  over  to  a 
tenant  at  will  the  privilege  of  a  perpetual  occupation,  and  give 
him  secure  and  rightful  possession  of  all  the  requisite  title-deeds, 
and  furnish  him  out  of  his  own  hand  with  the  materials  .of  such 
a  plea  or  legal  argument  as  might  insure  him  against  all  opposi- 
tion :  all  this  goes  to  vest  him  with  the  power  of  challenging  for 
his  own,  that  which  has  been  conferred  upon  him  by  another. 
But  this,  so  far  from  impairing  the  character  of  what  he  has  got- 
ten as  a  gift,  only  serves  to  complete  and  to  enhance  it,  and  should 
humble  him  the  more  into  the  gratitude  and  admiration  of  so  noble 
a  benefactor.  And  so  of  all  that  we  obtain  by  the  Gospel.  It  is 
a  gift  all  over  ;  and  though  it  includes  titles  as  well  as  benefits,  let 
it  ever  be  remembered,  that  they  are  not  titles  that  we  have 
earned,  but  titles  that  have  been  bestowed  upon  us.  It  is  the 
thought  of  this  that  should  rectify  our  carriage  towards  God.  It 
is  true,  that  by  the  economy  of  the  New  Testament,  they  who  be- 
lieve have  a  right  to  the  honors  of  immortality.  But  the  right  has 
been  given.  It  has  generously  and  gratuitously  descended  from 
above  :  and  they  on  whom  it  hath  alighted,  while  they  rejoice  in 
the  security  thereof,  still  walk  before  God  with  the  modesty  of 
His  gifted  dependents.  So  far  from  being  arrogant,  because  of 
the  claim  wherewith  they  have  been  invested,  it  only  serves  as 


404  romaine's  select  letters. 

another  topic  of  humility  and  thankfulness.  They  appear  before 
God  in  a  robe  of  righteousness,  but  they  know  that  it  is  a  robe  of 
His  putting  on.  In  His  presence  they  wear  an  order  of  merit, 
but  what  they  wear  another  hath  won — the  meed  of  another's  ser- 
vices— the  fruit  of  the  travail  of  another's  soul.  They  feel  the 
whole  security  of  an  unquestionable  right  without  its  arrogance, 
and  are  at  once  high  in  the  conscious  possession  of  their  great 
prerogative,  and  humble  under  the  feeling  that  they  are  debtors 
for  it  all.  The  reward  is  a  gift ;  for  the  righteousness  which  hath 
earned  the  reward  is  a  gift  also.  Heaven  may  at  first  be  thought 
of,  not  as  a  present  but  as  a  purchase ;  but  it  is  the  more  em- 
phatically a  present,  that  by  another's  purchase  it  has  become 
justly  and  legally  theirs.  It  is  this  which  gives  its  specific  char- 
acter to  the  economy  of  the  Gospel.  It  is  free  in  the  distribution 
of  its  blessings  ;  yet,  ere  the  blessings  are  granted,  there  must  be 
granted  a  right  to  the  possession  of  them — and  the  sinner  having 
no  such  right  in  his  own  person,  must  derive  it  from  abroad,  and 
owe  that  to  another,  which  in  himself  it  is  impossible  to  acquire. 
Heaven  becomes  his,  not  merely  in  love,  but  in  law :  and  in  con- 
sideration of  Him  who  hath  fulfilled  the  law,  the  bliss  of  eternity 
is  as  much  awarded  to  him  by  a  God  of  judgment,  as  it  is  made 
over  to  him  by  a  God  of  mercy.  Yet  the  law  does  not  obliterate 
the  love,  but  only  makes  it  more  prominent.  For  it  was  in  love 
that  God  sent  His  Son  into  the  world,  and  in  love  for  the  guilty 
did  the  Son,  in  their  stead,  obey  all  the  precepts,  and  suffer  all  the 
penalties  ;  and  though  without  a  righteousness  none  shall  enter 
into  paradise,  yet  was  it  love  that  provided  the  righteousness,  and 
now  presses  it  on  the  acceptance  of  all.  None  shall  be  admitted 
into  heaven  but  from  the  vantage  ground  of  a  finished  obedience; 
but  it  was  God  Himself  who  reared  the  vantage  ground,  and  who 
placed  the  believer  thereupon.  The  whole  security  of  a  right- 
eousness is  His,  the  whole  glory  of  it  is  another's.  That  he  shall 
have  a  righteousness  is  indispensable.  For  this  there  seems  to 
have  been  some  deep  and  awful  necessity  in  the  divine  jurispru- 
dence ;  and  it  has  been  so  provided  for,  that  now  the  sinner  can 
rightfully  claim,  and  God,  without  the  compromise  of  His  char- 
acter as  a  Judge,  can  rightfully  bestow.  But  the  very  thing  which 
has  established  the  sinner's  plea,  has  deepened  the  sinner's  obli- 
gations ;  and,  in  very  proportion  to  the  triumph  which  he  feels  be- 
cause of  the  validity  of  his  right,  are  both  the  gratitude  and  the 
self-renunciation  wherewith,  in  the  language  of  the  prophet,  he 
makes  the  declaration — "  In  the  Lord  have  I  righteousness." 

We  shall  close  our  remarks  by  adverting  to  a  phrase  that  we 
often  hear  uttered,  in  the  act  of  combating  the  resistance  of  man 
to  the  overtures  of  the  Gospel ;  and  that  is,  the  legal  spirit.  Now, 
if  by  this  be  meant  the  demand  that  nature  has  for  a  righteous- 
ness wherein  to  appear  before  God — this  is  just  as  it  should  be. 
There  is,  and  there  ought  to  be,  a  secret  misgiving  of  the  heart, 


romaine's  select  letters.  405 

when  nothing  but  the  general  mercy  of  God  is  before  us,  on  which 
to  build  our  reliance.  The  thought  of  God's  other  attributes  will 
intrude  and  mar  the  soul's  attempt  to  tranquillize  itself.  The  sense 
of  a  holy  and  unalterable  law,  whose  demands  must  be  met  in  one 
way  or  other,  is  ever  present  to  the  conscience  ;  and,  without 
some  adjustment  in  which  it  can  repose,  will  leave  it  unsatisfied. 
There  is  a  longing  for  the  bliss  of  eternity,  but  at  the  same  time 
a  certain  unutterable  sense  upon  the  heart,  that  without  a  some- 
thing whereby  the  justice  of  God  might  be  propitiated,  and  a 
homage  might  be  done  to  the  principles  of  a  government  that  is 
lofty  and  unchangeable,  this  bliss  can  never  be  arrived  at.  We 
feel,  that  ere  we  can  enter  upon  life  everlasting,  every  legal  pen- 
alty must  be  done  away,  and  a  sufficient  legal  plea  be  established 
on  which  to  found  our  right  of  admittance  before  the  throne  of 
God.  The  notions  and  the  feelings  of  jurisprudence  are  mixed 
up  with  our  every  speculation  on  the  road  to  heaven  ;  and  it  is 
the  inextinguishable  sentiment  of  every  bosom,  that,  in  order  to 
man  being  inducted  there,  a  something  must  be  done  upon  which 
God  might  hold  him  to  be  righteous,  and  deal  with  him  accord- 
ingly.  A  sense  of  the  need  of  such  a  righteousness  is  universal, 
and  is  historically  marked  both  by  the  sacrifices  of  heathenism, 
and  by  the  manifold  labors  and  formalities  of  superstitions  both  in 
and  out  of  Christendom.  There  is  the  unexcepted  sense  of  a 
great  moral  jurisdiction  on  the  part  of  God  over  his  creatures, 
and  of  a  law  which  they  are  bound  to  observe — and  of  the  need 
that  there  is,  if  men  shall  obtain  the  rewards  and  preferments  of 
eternity  at  all,  that  the  law  shall  give  the  authority  of  its  consent, 
so  that  they  may  be  legally  and  rightfully  conveyed  to  him. 
Hence,  under  all  the  disguises  of  all  the  superstitions  upon  earth, 
the  universal  cry  of  man  for  a  righteousness  in  order  to  find  ac- 
ceptance with  his  God — a  cry  which  the  Bible  does  not  resist,  but 
to  which  it  fully  and  explicitly  responds,  when  it  affirms  of  the 
sanctions  of  the  law,  that  they  are  irreversible,  and  that  heaven 
and  earth  must  pass  away  rather  than  that  one  jot  or  one  tittle  of 
the  law  shall  fail. 

Now,  it  may  serve  to  guide  us  out  of  all  our  perplexities,  and 
to  establish  us  on  the  right  landing-place,  did  we  see  what  is  right, 
and  accurately  distinguish  it  from  what  is  wrong  in  this  legal 
spirit.  In  so  far  then,  as  the  legal  spirit  prompts  him  by  whom  it 
is  actuated,  to  seek  for  a  legal  right  of  admittance  into  heaven,  we 
have  nothing  to  say  against  it.  It  seems  the  general  apprehension 
of  nature,  in  all  countries  and  in  all  ages,  that  there  is  no  reach- 
ing a  habitation  of  bliss  and  of  divine  favor  through  eternity,  but 
by  the  stepping-stone  of  a  righteousness — and  this  apprehension 
we  hold  to  be  a  sound  one.  The  error  lies  not  in  seeking  such  a 
sighteousness,  but  in  seeking  it  from  the  wrong  quarter.  The 
capital  delusion  is  in  attempting  to  build  up  a  righteousness  out  of 


40G  BOMAINES  SELECT  LETTERS. 

uur  own  doings,  instead  of  fleeing  for  shelter  under  the  offered 
righteousness  that  has  already  been  built  up  out  of  the  doings  of 
another.  This  is  all  that  we  hold  to  be  wrong  in  the  legal  spirit ; 
for,  in  as  far  as  the  mere  attempt  to  make  up  a  title-deed  is  con- 
cerned— in  as  far  as  the  wish  is  felt  to  have  a  right  of  entry  to  the 
inheritance  that  is  above  put  into  our  hands,  which  may  be  ex- 
amined at  the  court  of  Heaven's  judicatory,  and  be  there  sustained 
as  in  every  way  valid  and  constitutional, — this,  for  which  nature 
everywhere  has  so  strong  an  appetite,  so  far  from  being  denounced 
as  wrong  in  Scripture,  it  is  the  great  design  of  the  Gospel  to  meet 
and  to  satisfy.  The  object  in  the  general  is  not  wrong — though 
it  is  very  possible  that  we  may  go  miserably  astray,  by  looking 
for  it  in  a  wrong  direction.  It  is  by  looking  for  it  in  ourselves 
that  we  err  so  grievously,  when  we  should  look  unto  Jesus  Christ, 
and  say,  in  the  words  of  the  prophet,  "In  the  Lord  have  I  right- 
eousness." The  errand  upon  which  he  came,  was  to  bring  a 
righteousness  into  the  world,  that  each  sinner  who  would,  might 
lay  hold  of  his  sacred  and  available  plea  for  admittance  into  hea- 
ven. This  is  the  righteousness  that  God  hath  ordained  as  the 
channel  of  approach,  by  which  even  the  worst  of  transgressors 
may  draw  nigh  ;  of  which  they  are  all  invited  to  make  coniident 
mention  in  their  prayers  for  acceptance  ;  and  on  account  of  which 
God  stands  pledged  to  accept  and  to  reward  them  accordingly. 
In  the  New  Testament  it  is  called  the  righteousness  of  God.  It 
is  not  because  of  our  desire  for  a  righteousness  that  we  are  on 
the  wrong  path  to  heaven  ;  but,  because  instead  of  submitting  to 
this  righteousness  of  God,  we  seek  to  establish  one  of  our  own. 
In  a  word,  it  is  self-righteousness  that  is  the  great  stumbling-block 
in  our  way.  It  is  the  vain  enterprise  of  working  an  adequate 
and  a  satisfying  merit  out  of  our  own  obedience.  It  is  challenging 
the  inspection  of  our  almighty  Lawgiver,  on  a  heart  that  has 
deeply  revolted  against  him,  and  on  a  history  deformed  by  trans- 
gressions innumerable — and  bidding  him  look  thereupon  with 
complacency.  It  is  laboring  to  arrive  at  rest  by  means  of  a  de- 
graded law,  brought  down  to  the  standard  of  our  own  weak  and 
worthless  compliances — and  without  homage  to  the  purity  and 
the  unchangeableness  of  Heaven's  government, — it  is  arrogating 
the  rewards  of  Heaven  for  our  own  polluted  righteousness,  as 
being  in  itself  good  enough  for  God.  Now  this  is  the  tendency 
of  nature  against  which  the  Gospel  hath  set  itself — not  to  thwart 
our  demand  for  a  righteousness,  but  to  lay  in  the  dust  all  confi- 
dence in  a  righteousness  of  our  own, — and  after  having  asserted 
the  prerogatives  of  an  outraged  law,  by  laying  the  whole  burden 
of  its  atonement  and  obedience  on  Him  who  hath  suffered  in  our 
stead,  and  in  our  stead  hath  fulfilled  all  righteousness ;  to  make 
open  proclamation  to  our  world,  that  all  are  welcome  unto  God — 
that  now  there  is  a  way  of  access  unto  him,  even  for  the  most 


romaine's  select  letters.  407 

grievous  of  offenders, — -but  that  this  way  is,  and  must  be,  under 
the. cover -of  the  great  Mediatorship.  You  will  breathe  a  new 
air,  you  will  break  forth  on  a  scene  of  freedom  and  enlargement ; 
all  will  be  light,  and  love,  and  liberty,  the  moment  that  you  can 
say,  with  the  concurrence  of  your  faith.  "  In  the  Lord  have  I 
righteousness  :"  and,  feeling  that  nothing  else  will  avail  for  Heav- 
en's approbation,  you  can  join  the  apostle  in  his  sentiment,  that, 
for  the  meritorious  favor  of  God,  I  desire  to  count  as  nothing  my 
own  services :  I  desire  and  am  determined  "  to  know  nothing  else 
save  Jesus  Christ  and  Him  crucified." 

We  know  of  no  Treatise  better  fitted  to  banish  the  legal  spirit, 
or  to  dispossess  the  mind  of  its  natural  tendencies  to  establish  a 
righteousness  of  our  own,  than  the  excellent  Letters  of  Mr.  Ro- 
maine,  which  we  have  given  in  the  present  selection.  The  Let- 
ters were  all  addressed  to  friends,  for  whose  spiritual  welfare  the 
author  cherished  a  deep  interest ;  and  they  were  therefore  de- 
signed to  communicate  comfort,  or  counsel,  or  direction,  for  re- 
solving the  doubts,  or  relieving  the  perplexities  to  which  the 
Christian  is  exposed.  To  dissipate  these  doubts  and  perplexities, 
which  he  well  knew  originated  most  frequently  in  a  self-righteous 
spirit,  he  continually  directs  their  believing  view  to  Jesus  Christ. 
And  well  knowing  that  the  manifestations  of  the  love  and  grace 
of  our  heavenly  Father,  revealed  to  the  soul  by  the  blessed  Sav- 
iour, could  alone  dispel  the  fears  and  the  jealousies  of  nature,  his 
constant  aim  was  to  point  their  eye,  and  direct  their  steps,  to 
"  the  Lamb  of  God,  who  taketh  away  the  sins  of  the  world." 
And  thus,  by  the  simple  reliance  of  faith  on  the  all-sufficient 
atonement  and  perfect  righteousness  of  Christ,  he  directed  them 
to  find  that  peace  and  hope  which  could  alone  sustain  their  souls 
in  the  serenity  of  their  confidence  towards  God,  and  to  obtain 
those  spiritual  communications  of  grace,  which  could  alone  nour- 
ish the  divine  life  within  them,  and  carry  them  forward  in  a  pro- 
gressive course  of  sanctification  and  holiness,  to  render  them 
meet  for  heaven.  Richly  experiencing  these  consolations  and 
hopes  in  his  own  soul,  and  knowing  the  alone  source  from  whence 
they  were  derived,  the  doctrine  of  the  cross  became  the  subject 
of  his  constant  meditation,  and  the  name  of  Jesus  the  much-loved 
theme  on  which  he  delighted  to  expatiate.  Amidst  all  his  difficul- 
ties and  perplexities,  his  confidence  was  stayed  with  the  assurance 
that  "  the  Lord  reigneth  ;"  and,  by  judging  Him  faithful  who  had 
promised,  he  maintained  in  his  soul  a  rejoicing  hope  of  eternal 
life,  through  his  Lord  and  Saviour  Jesus  Christ.  It  was  thus  that 
he  maintained  a  perennial  and  unfading  communion  with  God — 
that  he  daily  and  habitually  rejoiced  in  the  light  of  his  reconciled 
countenance — that  his  gratitude  and  love  were  sustained  in  a 
strong  and  invariable  glow — and  that  his  sanctification  and  holi- 
ness were  promoted.     And  no  one  can  peruse  the  following  Let- 


408  romaine's  select  letters. 

ters,  without  perceiving  that  the  doctrines  of  free  grace  are  doc- 
trines according  to  godliness — that  they  serve  no  less  to  aliment 
the  love  and  the  obedience,  than  the  peace  and  the  joy  of  the 
believer — and  that  justification  by  faith  in  the  Saviour's  righteous- 
ness alone,  forms  not  only  the  surest  ground  of  hope,  but  the  best 
security  for  an  humble  and  holy  devotedness  of  life  to  God. 


INTRODUCTORY   ESSAY 


TO    A    TREATISE 


ON  THE  FAITH  AND  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  GOSPEL. 
BY  THE  REV.  ARCHIBALD  HALL. 


It  is  remarkable,  that  our  Saviour,  after  foretelling  the  destruc- 
tion of  Jerusalem,  and  giving  the  assurance  that  He  will  speedily 
come  to  avenge  His  elect,  makes  this  solemn  and  awakening  in- 
quiry :  "  Nevertheless,  when  the  Son  of  man  cometh,  shall  He 
find  faith  on  the  earth  ?"  We  cannot  so  far  dive  into  the  unre- 
vealed  secrets  of  prophecy,  as  to  affirm  how  much,  or  how  little, 
of  analogy  there  is  between  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  and  the 
final  dissolution  of  our  world.  It  is  impossible,  in  reading  the 
woes  and  denunciations  of  our  Saviour  upon  this  subject,  to  rid 
ourselves  of  the  impression,  that  there  is  a  general  resemblance 
between  these  two  events.  Both  of  them  are  described  under 
the  figure  of  the  coming  of  the  Son  of  man.  At  both  of  them 
there  is  a  work  of  vengeance  to  be  done,  and  a  fell  manifestation 
given  of  God's  wrath  against  the  finally  and  obstinately  impen- 
itent. In  both  an  old  economy  is  entirely  swept  away,  and  a  new 
order  of  things  emerges  from  the  ruins  of  it.  But  there  is  one 
point  of  the  comparison,  at  which,  instead  of  a  likeness,  we  be- 
lieve it  to  be  the  general  apprehension  of  Christians,  that  there 
must  be  a  strong  dissimilarity.  We  are  apt  to  look  forward  to  a 
mighty  spread  and  revival  of  the  Gospel  in  the  latter  days.  Ere 
the  day  of  judgment  shall  arrive,  we  count  on  the  restoration  of 
Jews,  and  the  flocking  in  of  Heathens,  and  the  consummation  of 
a  great  moral  triumph  over  the  world's  blindness  and  depravity  ; 
and,  in  short,  a  whole  species  visibly  awakened  from  the  lethargy 
of  nature,  and  turned,  intently  turned,  on  the  things  of  eternity. 
Now,  we  dispute  not  that  in  our  book  of  prophecy  there  is  a 
warrant  for  all  these  expectations.  But  the  difficulty  is,  how  to 
find  an  adjustment  between  these  high  millennial  hopes  on  the  one 
hand  ;  and  on  the  other,  the  sudden  and  overwhelming  surprise 
wherewith  the  last  day  is  to  come  on  an  unbelieving  world.  If  it 
be  as  applicable  to  the  breaking  up  of  our  globe  as  it  was  to  the 
breaking  up  of  Jerusalem,  that  its  coming  is  to  be  as  a  thief  in  the 

52 


410  hall's  treatise  on  the 

night,  and  that  it  shall  bear  with  it  a  sudden  destruction,  on  men 
steeped  in  the  delusion  of  all  around  them  being  peace  and  safety, 
and  that,  wholly  given  over  to  earthliness,  they  shall  be  caught 
at  unawares,  while  "  eating  and  drinking,  marrying  and  giving  in 
marriage," — if  it  be  really  true,  that  it  is  in  the  midst  of  holiday 
enjoyments,  and  among  the  songs  of  mirth  and  revelry,  that  the 
sound  of  the  last  trumpet  shall  be  heard,  and  the  Judge  is  to 
descend  with  the  authority  of  a  sudden  arrest  on  all  the  pursuits 
and  frivolities  of  a  then  unthinking  generation,  may  it  not,  after 
all,  be  true  of  this  His  latter  visitation,  as  it  was  of  His  former 
one,  that  when  the  Son  of  man  cometh  He  shall  not  find  faith 
upon  the  earth  ? 

Now  we  shall  leave  the  difficulty  where  we  found  it — and  in- 
stead of  devising  explanations  for  other  men  and  other  ages,  let  us 
try  to  ascertain  in  how  far  the  rebuke  of  the  Saviour  is  applicable 
to  ourselves. 

But  ere  we  proceed,  let  us,  in  explanation  of  the  term  faith,  ad- 
vert to  the  wide  distinction  which  obtains  between  the  popular 
imagination  of  what  it  is,  and  the  apostle's  definition  of  what  it  is. 
The  common  conception  about  it  is,  that  it  consists  in  a  correct 
apprehension  of  the  truths  of  theology — or  soundness  of  belief  as 
opposed  to  error  of  belief.  It  appears  to  be  a  very  prevalent  im- 
pression, that  faith  lies  in  our  judging  rightly  of  the  doctrines  of 
the  Bible — or  that  we  have  a  proper  understanding  of  them.  And, 
in  this  way,  the  privileges  annexed  to  faith  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment, are  very  apt  to  be  regarded  as  a  sort  of  remuneration  for 
the  soundness  of  our  orthodoxy.  Heaven  is  viewed  as  a  kind  of 
reward,  if  not  for  the  worth  of  our  doings,  at  least  for  the  worth 
and  the  justness  of  our  dogmata.  Under  the  old  economy,  eternal 
life  was  held  out  as  a  return  to  us  for  right  practice.  Under  the 
new  economy,  is  it  conceived  by  many,  that  it  is  held  out  to  us  as 
a  return  for  right  thinking.  Figure  two  theologians  to  be  listed, 
the  one  against  the  other,  in  controversy.  He  who  espouses  error 
is  estimated  to  be  a  heretic,  and  wanting  in  the  faith.  He  who 
espouses  truth,  is  estimated  to  be  a  sound  believer,  so  that  his  faith 
resolves  itself  into  the  accuracy  of  his  creed.  It  is  not,  Do  this, 
and  you  shall  live — but  it  is,  Think  thus,  and  you  shall  live, — and 
this  seems  to  be  the  popular  and  prevailing  imagination  of  being 
saved  by  faith,  and  being  justified  by  faith. 

Now  look  to  the  apostolical  definition  of  faith,  as  being  the  "  sub- 
stance of  things  hoped  for,  and  the  evidence  of  things  not  seen" 
— or  as  being  that,  which  substantiates  or  realizes  the  things  that 
we  hope  for,  and  which  makes  plain  to  our  conviction  the  things 
that  we  do  not  see.  It  is  the  assured  expectation  of  that  which 
we  hope  for,  and  the  assured  conviction  of  that  which  we  do  not 
see — and  lest  any  obscurity  should  be  left  to  hang  over  this  his 
description  of  faith,  he  exemplifies  it  by  the  history  of  many  pro- 
phets and  eminent  worthies  who  had  gone   before  him.     In  the 


FAITH    AND    INFLUENCE    OF    THE    GOSPEL.  411 

reading  of  this  catalogue,  we  find,  that  with  all  the  instances,  there 
was  such  a  living  power  and  truth  given  to  the  things  that  are 
distant  and  unseen,  as  caused  them  to  overbear  the  impression  of 
things  that  are  visible,  and  of  things  that  were  at  hand.  The  faith 
of  these  excellent  ones,  gave  that  character  of  certainty  to  invisi 
ble  things,  as  made  them  to  have  the  like  influence  upon  conduct, 
that  they  would  have  had,  though  they  had  been  so  many  near 
and  besetting  realities  which  the  eye  of  sense  could  apprehend. 
And  thus  it  is,  that  one  of  the  patriarchs  was  moved  to  obedience 
by  "  things  not  seen  as  yet,"  and  that  another  went  forth  looking 
to  a  "  city  which  hath  foundations,"  and  that  a  third  cherished  the 
hope  of  a  most  unlikely  fulfilment,  resting  it  alone  on  the  faithful- 
ness of  a  divine  Promiser,  and  that  all  of  them  declared  plainly, 
by  their  movements,  how  they  sought  a  country.  Abraham,  by 
the  offering  up  of  Isaac,  earning  the  triumph  of  hope  over  sense  ; 
and  Isaac  speaking  with  assurance  of  the  things  that  were  to 
come ;  and  Moses  having  "  respect  unto  the  recompense  of  re- 
ward, and  enduring  as  seeing  Him  who  is  invisible  ;"  and  many 
more  who  braved  the  most  appalling  cruelties,  in  the  hope  of  a 
better  resurrection.  In  each  of  the  instances,  the  apostle's  defini- 
tion was  bodied  forth,  as  it  weres  on  the  believer's  history.  The 
leading  character  of  their  faith,  was  just  the  assured  expectation 
of  things  hoped  for,  and  the  conviction  of  things  not  seen.  There 
was  no  quarrelling  about  orthodoxy.  There  was  no  settlement 
of  any  controversial  question.  The  faith  did  not  lie  in  the  mere 
rectitude  of  any  speculative  opinion.  It  lay  in  a  simple  and  un- 
doubting  anticipation  of  what  an  invisible  God  told  of  certain  in- 
visible things  that  were  to  come.  And  thus  the  future  had  the 
same  practical  ascendency  over  them,  that  the  present  has  over 
other  men.  They  walked  by  faith,  and  not  by  sight.  They 
looked  beyond  the  things  that  were  seen  and  temporal,  to  the 
things  that  were  unseen  and  eternal. 

Now  let  us  take  this  view  of  faith — let  us  look  to  it,  not  as  the 
mere  acquiescence  of  the  understanding  in  the  dogmata  of  any 
sound  or  recognized  creed,  but  as  that  which  brings  the  future 
and  the  yet  unseen  of  revelation  so  home  to  the  mind,  as  that  the 
mind  is  filled  with  a  sense  of  their  reality,  and  actually  proceeds 
upon  it.  Conceive  it  to  be  that  which  places  the  unseen  Creator 
by  the  side  of  what  is  visible  and  created,  and  so  gives  the  pre- 
dominancy to  His  will  over  all  those  countless  diversities  of  influ- 
ence, wherewith  sense  hath  enslaved  the  vast  majority  of  this 
world's  generations.  Or  conceive  it  to  be  that  which  places  eter- 
nity by  the  side  of  time,  and  so  regards  the  one  as  a  mere  path  or 
stepping-stone  to  the  other;  that  the  man  whom  it  possesses  actu- 
ally moves  through  life  in  the  spirit  of  a  traveller,  feels  his  home 
to  be  heaven,  and  all  his  dearest  hopes  and  interests  to  be  laid  up 
there;  walking,  therefore,  over  the  \v  old  with  a  more  light  and 
unencumbered  footstep  than  other  men,  just  because  all  its  adver- 


412  hall's  treatise  on  the 

sities  to  him  are  but  the  crosses  of  a  rapid  journey,  and  all  its  joys 
but  the  shifting  scenery  of  the  land  through  which  he  is  travelling, 
and  visions  of  passing  loveliness.  Keep  by  this  definition  of  faith, 
and  bear  it  round  as  a  test  among  all  the  families  of  your  acquain- 
tance. Go  with  it  to  the  haunts  of  every-day  life,  and  see  if  it  can 
guide  you  to  so  much  as  one  individual,  whose  doings  plainly  de- 
clare that  he  is  pressing  onwards  to  an  immortality,  for  the  joys 
and  exercises  of  which,  he  is  all  the  while  in  busy  preparation  ; 
and  we  fear,  that  even  in  this  our  professing  age.  faith  is  scarcely 
and  rarely  to  be  found  ;  that  nearly  a  universal  species  are  car- 
ried through  life  in  one  tide  of  overbearing  carnality  ;  that  the 
present  world  domineers  over  almost  every  creature  that  breathes 
in  it ;  and  were  the  Son  of  man  now  to  descend  in  the  midst  of  us, 
we  know  not  how  few  they  are  who  would  meet  and  satisfy  his 
inquiries  after  faith  upon  the  earth. 

For  let  there  first  pass  under  our  review,  that  mighty  host  who 
live  in  palpable  ungodliness,  who,  if  you  cannot  say  of  them  that 
they  are  against  God,  are  at  least  without  God  in  the  world  ;  who 
spend  their  days,  not  perhaps  in  positive  hostility,  but  certainly  in 
most  torpid  apathy  and  indifference  towards  the  Father  of  their 
spirits  ;  who,  feelingly  alive  to  all  the  concerns  of  time,  are  dead 
and  insensible  to  all  that  is  beyond  it.  These  indisputably  are 
children  without  faith.  Eternity  is  a  blank  in  their  imagination. 
They  are  alike  unmoved  by  its  hopes  and  by  its  fears,  and  it  offers 
as  little  of  influence  to  move  them,  as  does  that  dark  and  unpeo- 
pled nothingness  which  lies  beyond  the  outskirts  of  creation.  The 
thought  of  a  distant  planet  that  rolls  afar  in  space,  carries  in  it  no 
practical  operation  on  their  business  or  their  bosoms.  And  the 
thought  of  some  distant  misery  or  happiness  that  may  cast  up  in 
eternity,  has  just  as  little  of  practical  operation  over  the  minds  of 
the  vast  majority  of  this  world.  That  which  lies  between,  acts  as 
an  insuperable  barrier  between  the  things  of  faith  and  their  prin- 
ciples, whether  of  feeling  or  of  action  ;  and  so  it  is  that  they  can 
fetch,  from  the  region  which  lies  on  the  other  side  of  the  grave,  no 
moving  force  which  might  practically  tell  on  their  hearts  or  on 
their  history  upon  this  side  of  it. 

It  were  certainly  premature  and  presumptuous  to  make  these 
affirmations  of  all ;  but  we  leave  it  to  your  own  observation, 
whether  it  does  not  apply,  and  in  its  full  extent,  to  many  of  your 
friends  or  familiars  in  society — to  many,  and  very  many,  who 
daily  throni:  our  markets,  and  sit  around  our  boards  of  festivity, 
and  labor  from  morning  to  night  among  the  cares  of  family  man- 
agement, and  exchange  the  calls,  and  the  salutations,  and  the  in- 
quiries of  civil  companionship;  and  whether  in  the  pursuits  of 
science,  or  merchandise,  or  amusement,  are  severally  busy,  each 
with  a  world  of  his  own,  from  which  God  is  shut  out,  and  in  which 
eternity  is  forgotten.  Nothing  can  be  more  wide  of  apostolical 
faith  than  the  spiritual   frame  and  habit  of  these.     They  mind 


FAITH  AND  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  GOSPEL.  413 

earthly  things.  They  have  no  conversation  in  heaven.  The 
world  is  their  all,  and  it  is  within  the  compass  of  its  visible  horizon 
that  their  every  wish  and  every  interest  lies.  The  terrors  of 
another  world  do  not  agitate  them.  The  hopes  of  another  world 
do  not  enliven  them.  To  both  they  are  profoundly  asleep,  and 
that  too  at  the  very  time  when  all  within  them  is  restless,  and 
anxious,  and  astir  about  the  matters  of  the  short-lived  day  that  is 
passing  over  them.  This  is  the  general  description  of  all  those 
who  live  without  God  and  without  hope.  Does  it  apply  to  any 
of  you  ?  Then  you  may  have  honor,  and  decency,  and  kindness, 
and  courtesy,  and  agreeable  manners,  and  even  exemplary  morals, 
but  you  have  no  faith. 

And  it  brings  out  this  want  of  faith  into  more  distinct  exhibi- 
tion, that  they  who  exemplify  it  are  so  susceptible  of  a  powerful 
impulse  from  futurity.  It  is  not  that  we  want  the  faculty  of  an- 
ticipation, for  this,  in  fact,  is  the  main-spring  of  all  the  activity 
that  we  see  afloat  in  the  world.  Man  lives  on  the  prospect  that 
is  before  him.  It  is  in  the  pursuit  of  some  distant  advantage,  or 
in  the  avoidance  of  some  distant  evil,  that  all  his  powers  of  thought 
and  action  are  expended.  Were  the  machinery  of  his  moral 
system  capable  of  no  impulse  from  futurity,  then  it  might  alleviate 
the  charge  that  we  prefer  against  him,  when  we  state  his  life  to 
be  an  idiofs  dream,  on  the  brink  of  an  eternity,  that,  ere  a  few 
little  days,  will  absorb  him,  an  unsheltered  and  unprovided  crea- 
ture, into  a  receptacle  of  despair.  But  it  only  marks  the  more 
striking  his  blindness  to  the  futurities  of  an  eternal  world,  that  he 
is  so  vigilant,  and  so  busily  alive  to  all  the  futurities  of  the  present 
world — that  he  proves  himself  so  eminently  a  creature  of  fore- 
sight in  all  that  regards  the  pursuits  or  the  interests  of  time,  while 
this  high  characteristic  of  his  nobler  and  loftier  nature,  seems  to 
abandon  him  in  all  that  regards  the  great  concerns  of  immortality 
— that  the  very  same  man  who  can  sit  up  late,  and  rise  up  early, 
for  the  purpose  of  building  an  earthly  fortune  in  behalf  of  his 
children,  and  of  his  children's  children,  should  never  bestow  the 
carefulness  of  half  an  hour  on  the  fate  and  fortune  of  his  own 
imperishable  soul — that  he  who  can  regale  his  imagination  with 
the  perspective  of  thriving  descendants,  whom  the  wealth  that  he 
now  accumulates  is  to  grace  and  to  ennoble,  should  never  turn 
his  eye  to  that  grave  in  which  his  own  body  will  then  be  moulder- 
ing, or  to  that  land  of  condemnation  in  which  his  own  desolate 
spirit  will  then  wander  in  the  nakedness  of  its  unatoned  guilt,  and 
of  its  unchanged  and  unrenewed  earthliness — that  he  who,  in  be- 
queathing to  posterity,  can  stretch  his  mind  forward  to  the  time 
when  his  own  name  shall  be  forgotten,  and  the  tomb-stone  that 
covers  him  shall  have  gathered  upon  it  the  mould  of  its  distant 
antiquity, — that  he  who  can  thus  devise  and  make  disposition  of 
his  earthly  treasure  for  centuries  to  come,  should  be  so  shut  and 
fastened  in  all  his  sensibilities  to  a  treasure  in  heaven,  and  an  in- 


414  hall's  treatise  on  the 

heritance  that  fadeth  not  away.  It  is  this  busy  excitement  of  his 
about  the  futurities  of  earth  which  brings  out,  by  contrast,  to  more 
striking  and  surprising  manifestation,  the  utter  lethargy  of  his 
soul  about  those  futurities  of  an  everlasting  condition  that  are  so 
sure  to  overtake  him.  It  is  this  which  gives  its  most  conclusive 
demonstration  of  Nature's  apathy,  and  Nature's  blindness,  and 
prepares  us  for  the  announcement,  that  when  the  Son  of  man 
cometh  he  may  not  find  faith  upon  the  earth. 

But  let  us  pass  onward  to  a  class  of  somewhat  different  aspect 
from  that  of  the  palpably  regardless  ;  who  have  been  so  far 
mindful  of  religion  as  to  put  on  its  decencies,  and  at  least  its  pub- 
lic devotions  ;  who  fill  their  Sabbath  pew  on  every  recurring 
occasion,  with  the  members  of  a  well-trained  and  well-mustered 
family,  of  whom  we  will  grant  that  their  presentation  at  church, 
is  just  a  thing  as  regular  and  sure  as  the  tolling  of  the  bell  that 
summons  them  ;  who  are  ever  in  their  places  at  the  periodic  cel- 
ebration of  our  great  Christian  festival ;  and  who,  even  in  addition 
to  their  Sabbath  and  their  sacramental  observances,  have  such  a 
style  of  worship  and  of  exercise  at  home  as  is  in  perfect  keeping 
with  their  more  ostensible  proprieties.  One  would  imagine  of 
such  quiet,  and  orderly,  and  church-going  men,  that  truly  they 
are  walking  with  a  pilgrim  step  to  another  and  a  happier  land  ; 
that  it  was  not  the  happiness  of  the  present,  but  the  hope  of  the 
future  which  concerned  them  ;  that  instead  of  being  taken  up 
with  the  fleeting  interests  of  sense,  they  were  indeed  taken  up 
with  those  distant  and  unseen  things,  by  the  power  of  which  it  is 
that  we  estimate  their  condition  as  believers  ;  that  so  many  goodly 
symptoms,  in  the  way  of  form,  and  ordinance,  and  manifold  com- 
pliance with  the  established  usages  of  Christianity,  argued  them 
to  be  indeed  of  the  faith — and,  at  all  events,  that,  in  respect  of 
moral  and  spiritual  characteristics,  they  are  of  a  species  alto- 
gether distinct  from  those  infidels  who  disown  the  Gospel,  or 
those  ungodly  who  despise  it. 

And  yet  it  is  most  true,  that  all  this  seeming  sanctity  may  con- 
sist with  an  entire  and  unbroken  habit  of  worldliness  ;  that  all 
this  clock-work  religion  may  stand  as  little  connected  with  the 
aspirings  of  a  mind  that  is  heavenly,  as  do  the  routine  evolutions 
of  any  piece  of  mechanism  ;  that  the  keeping  of  all  the  Sabbath 
punctualities,  may  argue  no  more  a  heart  set  on  the  things  that 
are  above,  than  would  the  putting  on  of  our  Sabbath  vestments  ; 
and  the  church,  and  the  sacrament,  and  the  family  exercises, 
taking  their  respective  places  in  the  round  of  many  a  sober  cit- 
izen, along  with  his  busy  shop,  and  his  comfortable  meals,  and  his 
parties  of  agreeable  fellowship,  may,  one  and  all  of  them,  be  only 
so  many  varieties  of  earthliness.  It  is  really  so  very  possible  to 
have  gotten,  whether  by  inheritance  or  by  accident,  into  a  habit 
of  unvaried  regularity,  and  to  have  a  kind  of  conscience  about  it 
too,  and  to  feel  a  violence  done  to  our  religious  sensibilities,  when- 


FAITH    AND    INFLUENCE    OF    THE    GOSPEL.  415 

ever  it  is  broken  in  upon,  and  to  have  persevered  so  long  in  a 
certain  style  of  observation,  that  a  positive  discomfort  ;s  suffered, 
should  any  inroad  be  made  upon  it — it  is  so  possible,  that  all  this 
may  meet,  and  be  at  one,  with  the  downward  tendencies  of  a 
heart  which  is  altogether  of  the  earth,  and  earthly.  It  does  not 
follow,  that  because  a  man  of  forms,  he  is  therefore  a  man  of 
faith.  There  may  be  much  without  him  that  bears  upon  it  the 
aspect  of  religiousness,  while  there  is  nought  within  him  of  "  the 
substance  of  things  hoped  for,  and  the  evidence  of  things  not 
seen."  He  differs,  it  is  true,  from  the  Sabbath  breaker,  and  the 
profane  absentee  from  all  our  ordinances  ;  but  the  difference  may 
be  altogether  complexional.  To  superinduce  the  ordinances  of 
the  Gospel  on  a  man's  history,  is  one  thing  ;  that  they  should  spring 
from  a  spontaneous  affection  for  the  Gospel  in  a  man's  heart,  is 
another.  The  example  of  parents  may  have  superinduced  them  ; 
or  the  force  of  natural  habit  may  have  done  it ;  or  a  taste  for  the 
decencies  of  family  regulation  may  have  done  it, — and  thus  it 
often  holds  practically  true,  that  the  punctuality  of  his  Sabbath 
worship  may  no  more  argue  him  a  disciple  or  an  expectant  of 
immortality,  than  does  the  punctuality  of  his  morning  walk.  And, 
accordingly,  we  fear  it  to  be  true  of  many  such,  that  with  all 
their  external  tribute  at  the  altar  of  piety,  there  is  nought  of  the 
living  spirit  of  piety  in  their  bosoms — that  they  stand  as  firmly 
riveted  to  the  dust  of  our  perishable  world,  as  do  the  most  pro- 
fane and  profligate  of  their  fellows — that  their  hearts  are  just  as 
much  with  the  interests  of  a  passing  scene,  and  in  every  way  as 
naked  of  all  influence  from  the  things  of  eternity.  So  that  were 
you  to  follow  many  a  pains-taking  and  assiduous  formalist, 
throughout  the  line  of  his  week-day  movements,  you  would  say 
of  him,  too,  that  the  world  was  his  home,  and  heaven  but  the 
vision  or  the  entertainment  of  his  fancy — that  nought,  either  of 
substance  or  of  evidence,  stood  associated  with  his  thoughts  of 
futurity  on  the  other  side  of  death — that,  wanting  this,  he  wanted 
all  that  could  really  signalize  him  from  earthly  men,  as  a  traveller 
toward  Zion — that  all  which  could  be  alleged  of  his  observations 
or  his  prayers,  only  proved  him  to  wear  the  livery  of  the  faithful, 
without  their  spirit  or  their  character  :  for,  look  to  him  diligently, 
and  you  will  find  him  to  be  just  as  intent  on  lucre,  as  keen  in 
bargains,  as  busy  and  breathless  in  all  the  pursuits  of  merchandise, 
as  agonized  by  the  crosses  of  misadventure,  as  enraptured  at  the 
sight  of  profits  and  of  snug  accumulations  ;  in  a  word,  not  only 
as  laborious  with  his  hand,  but,  more  material  still,  as  wholly 
given  over,  with  his  heart,  to  the  pursuits  and  interests  of  a  short- 
lived day,  as  are  the  great  bulk,  and  commonplace,  of  our  or- 
dinary men. 

But,  again,  if  faith,  in  the  apostle's  sense  of  it,  cannot  be 
ascribed  to  the  openly  regardless,  and  cannot  be  ascribed  to  those 
seemingly  religious,  whose  only  homage  to  the  cause  is  that  of 


416  hall's  treatise  on  the 

their  personal  attendance  upon  its  decencies  and  its  forms — ought 
it  not,  at  least,  to  be  ascribed  to  another  and  a  higher  class — even 
to  those  who  are  zealous  for  the  faith  ?  It  might  well  be  imagined, 
of  him  who  thinks  to  purchase  heaven  by  his  works  of  devotee- 
ship,  that,  all  scrupulous  as  he  is  of  Sabbath  and  sacramental 
proprieties,  he  may  still  be  wanting  in  the  faith.  But,  can  this  be 
alleged  of  him  who  has  oft  been  heard  to  speak  of  faith  and  of 
works  together — and  who,  after  argumenting  the  utter  worthless- 
ness  of  the  latter,  has  confined  most  rigidly  to  the  former  all  of 
power  and  of  efficacy  that  there  is  in  the  business  of  salvation? 
How  is  it,  that  the  man  who  ever  and  anon  pronounces  on  the 
vanity  of  his  own  righteousness,  and  professes  the  righteousness 
of  Christ,  as  appropriated  and  laid  hold  of  by  faith,  to  be  the 
alone  plea  on  which  a  sinner  can  be  justified — how  is  it  that  he 
can,  at  the  same  time,  be  destitute  of  faith  ?  Surely,  if  faith  is  to 
be  found  at  all  upon  our  earth,  it  must  be  among  those  men  of  a  jeal- 
ous and  stickling  orthodoxy,  who  are  ever  on  the  alert,  and  on  the 
alarm,  when  human  morality  lifts  its  pretensions  against  the  su- 
premacy of  faith,  and  offers  presumptuously  to  usurp,  or  to  dero- 
gate, from  its  honors.  Where  is  faith  to  be  met  with,  if  not  among 
its  own  professed  and  earnest  advocates  ? — and  how  can  the 
credit  of  faith  be  denied  to  those,  who  say,  they  hold  by  it  alone 
as  their  passport  to  heaven,  and  that  to  it  alone  they  look  for  being 
justified  ? 

To  know,  and  to  think,  that  a  man  is  justified  by  faith,  is  one 
thing ;  actually  to  have  that  faith,  is  another.  One  may  know, 
that  he  who  possesses  a  certain  title-deed,  has  the  property  of 
certain  lands — but  this  is  wholly  different  from  his  being  himself 
the  possessor  of  it.  Your  religious  knowledge  may  qualify  you 
for  enumerating  all  the  powers  and  privileges  which  belong  to 
faith — but  it  does  not  therefore  follow,  that  this  faith  actually  be- 
longs to  you.  It  is  but  a  distant  connection  to  have  with  an  earthly 
estate,  that  you  know  what  sort  of  rights  they  are,  by  the  holding 
of  which  it  becomes  the  property  of  the  owner.  This  you  may 
know  most  thoroughly,  and  yet  have  no  personal  interest  in  the 
rights  or  in  the  property  whatever.  And  distant,  indeed,  is  your 
connection  with  heaven,  if  you  but  know,  how  it  is  by  faith  that 
man  acquires  a  part  and  an  inheritance  therein.  The  question 
recurs,  Have  you  that  faith  ?  It  is  not  of  your  knowledge,  or 
your  opinion,  that  we  at  present  inquire.  You  may  know  that  faith 
justifies  a  man,  and  yet  have  no  faith  whatever  of  your  own.  It 
may  be  a  favorite  dogma,  this  article  of  justification  ;  and  you, 
having  the  dogma,  yet  wanting  the  faith,  may  have  no  justifi- 
cation. You  may  embrace,  and  with  fond  affection  too,  the  sound 
doctines  upon  this  subject,  and  yet  not,  by  any  faith  of  your  own, 
have  actually  embraced  the  righteousness  of  Christ :  and  so  this 
doctrine  of  theology  may  be  of  as  little  avail  towards  the  peace 


FAITH  AND  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  GOSPEL.  417 

and  joy  of  your  eternity,  as  any  doctrine  of  politics,  or  of  philoso- 
phy, or  of  agriculture. 

Neither  is  it  enough,  that  you  assert  with  vehemence,  and  abide 
with  most  opinionative  tenacity  by,  the  right  doctrines  of  justifi- 
cation. Who  has  not  witnessed  the  very  same  vehemence,  and 
the  very  same  tenacity,  on  other  fields  of  speculation  ?  All  that 
ardor,  and  earnestness,  and  intolerance  of  what  is  pronounced  to 
be  damnable  error,  which  are  so  often  exhibited  in  theological 
controversy,  may  often  be  resolved  into  the  pride  of  argument,  the 
impatience  of  defeat,  the  jealousy  of  other  powers  and  other  un- 
derstandings. These  are  the  principles  which  uphold  the  zeal  and 
strenuousness  of  so  many  combatants  on  the  arena  of  a  merely 
secular  debate,  and  make  each  so  resolute  in  the  affirmation 
and  defence  of  his  own  dogma.  And  on  no  other  principles  may 
you  have  taken  your  side  on  the  agitated  question  of  our  accept- 
ance with  God  ;  and  may  have  urged  it  with  most  intense  affec- 
tion and  energy,  that  this  acceptance  hangs  upon  faith,  and  upon 
it  alone.  This  you  may  do,  and  yet  be  personally  without  the 
faith  yourself — a  fierce  and  eager  partisan,  and  on  the  right  side 
too,  of  this  evangelical  warfare — though,  within  the  receptacles 
of  your  moral  system,  there  be  nought  of  "  the  substance  of  things 
hoped  for,"  and  nought  of  "  the  evidence  of  things  not  seen." 

We  think  that,  on  the  first  blush  and  aspect  of  it,  the  thing  is 
quite  palpable  to  the  eye  of  general  observation.  It  is  surely  an 
oft-exemplified  phenomenon,  that  a  man  should  be  quite  sturdy  in 
his  adherence  to  the  orthodox  creed,  and  yet  be  all  the  while  a 
man  of  earthly  pursuits  and  earthly  affections.  He  may  lay  claim 
to  the  dogmata  thereof,  as  all  his  own, — and  yet  the  living  reali- 
ties of  which  they  treat,  may  never  have  impressed  one  touch  of 
their  practical  and  persuasive  ascendency  over  him.  His  mouth 
may  be  filled  with  the  language,  and  his  understanding  be  busied 
with  the  arguments,  of  orthodoxy,  and  yet  the  spiritual  things,  of 
which  words  are  but  the  representatives  and  the  symbols,  may 
never  once  have  come  into  living  play,  either  with  the  purposes 
of  his  life,  or  with  the  affections  of  his  still  unregenerated  bosom. 
He  may  stand  up  for  all  the  articles,  and  yet  be  standing  up  for 
mere  phraseology,  and  nothing  more.  It  may  be  a  mere  germ 
of  curiosity,  or  imagination,  with  the  terms  of  theology  ;  while 
the  truths  of  it  have  never  once  stood  before  the  eye  of  his  con- 
science, clothed  in  all  the  urgent  and  impressive  characters  of 
their  high  bearing  upon  his  everlasting  welfare.  They  may  have 
never,  indeed,  carried  him  forward  to  any  one  of  those  futurities,  to 
which  he  will  be  so  speedily  conducted,  by  the  flight  of  those  suc- 
cessive years  that  roll  over  him.  The  coming  death,  and  the 
coming  judgment,  and  the  coming  eternity,  may  all  be  unheeded, 
and  at  the  very  moment,  too,  when  he  is  agitating  the  terms  on 
which  death  is  plucked  of  its  sling,  and  judgment  is  disarmed 
by  mercy,  and  an  avenue  to  the  bliss  of  eternity  is  again  opened 

53 


418 


HALLS    TREATISE    ON    THE 


for  those  sinners  who  had  cast  it  away  from  them.  The  urgen- 
cies of  the  present  world  may  enslave  him,  even  while  the  con- 
cerns of  the  future  world  are  to  him  the  topics,  both  of  busy 
thought  and  busy  conversation.  The  matters  of  God's  kingdom 
may  be  quite  familiar  to  him  in  word,  which  never  are  felt  by 
him  in  their  power.  They  have  had  interest  enough  to  attract 
his  gaze,  but  not  energy  enough  to  move  his  practice.  They  play, 
in  speculation,  around  his  fancy  or  his  head,  but  they  have  never 
yet  stimulated  him  to  action  ;  and  while  his  talk  is  of  the  myste- 
ries of  heaven,  his  path  in  life  is  that  of  a  devoted  worldling. 

There  may  be  something  in  the  apostolical  definition  of  faith 
that  is  fitted  to  expose,  and  perhaps  to  remedy  this  delusion.  It 
is  such  a  faith  as,  at  least,  carries  hope  in  its  train.  It  has  for  its 
object  such  things  as  are  hoped  for — that  is,  hoped  for  to  the  in- 
dividual himself.  One  may  believe  of  a  thousand  things  in  which 
he  personally  has  no  share  and  no  interest— but  hope  implies  a 
certain  degree  of  appropriation.  It  may  be  easy  to  give  a  general 
consent  to  the  truth — that,  by  Christ  the  Saviour,  the  gate  of 
heaven  has  been  opened  for  sinners— but,  by  the  faith  of  our  text, 
the  sinner  sees  the  gate  of  heaven  to  be  open  for  himself;  and  so 
he  rejoices  in  the  bright  anticipation,  and  betakes  himself  to  all 
the  required  and  preparatory  movements  for  his  entrance  there- 
into. One  can  imagine,  that  the  report  of  a  Saviour  for  the  sin- 
ners of  another  country,  would  carry  in  it  none  of  the  personal 
excitement  of  hope,  and  none  of  the  personal  exertion  corres- 
pondent thereunto,  to  the  sinners  of  our  own  land.  And  yet  it  is 
conceivable,  that  this  message  of  a  distant  salvation  for  others, 
and  in  which  we  ourselves  had  no  individual  concern,  might  busily 
engage  our  speculations,  and  be  the  topic  amongst  us  of  a  very 
intent  controversy ;  and  might  arrange  us  into  parties,  according 
to  the  interpretation  that  we  gave  of  the  terms,  on  which  God 
took  into  acceptance  the  strayed  children  of  this  remote  branch 
of  his  family.  And  thus,  one  class  of  our  home  theologians  might 
think  truly,  and  have  the  sound  opinion,  on  this  matter  ;  and  so 
have  their  minds  imbued  with  the  accurate  belief.  Yet,  from  the 
nature  of  the  thing,  it  is  a  belief  which  carries  no  hope  along  with 
it — and  just,  we  apprehend,  such  a  belief  as  is  to  be  met  with 
among  many  of  the  actual  zealots  of  orthodoxy  in  our  present 
day.  They  treat  the  matter,  it  is  to  be  feared,  as  a  thing  that 
lies  remote  from  themselves — as  a  mere  theme  for  the  understand- 
ing ;  which  they  look  to  as  they  would  to  any  other  abstract  con- 
templation, but  which  they  do  not  look  to  as  that  which  bears, 
specifically  and  distinctly,  upon  their  own  interest.  Whatever 
faith  they  have,  is  a  faith  without  hope — but  this  is  not  the  faith 
of  our  text.  This  is  not  the  assured  expectation  of  things  hoped 
for.  This  is  not  the  case  of  a  man,  who  hath  closed  with  the 
overtures  of  the  Gospel  for  himself;  and  is  looking  onward  to 
heaven,  not  merely  as  a  place  that  has  been  opened,  by  a  Re- 


*A 


FAITH    AND    INFLUENCE    OF    THE    GOSPEL.  419 

deemer's  hand,  for  a  certain  number  of  travellers,  but  a  place  that 
has  been  opened  for  him,  as  one  of  these  travellers.  This  would 
change  the  character  of  his  faith.  This  would  turn  him  from  a 
controversialist  into  a  pilgrim.  In  the  former  view  of  it,  there 
was  nought  addressed  but  his  intellect.  The  latter  view  of  it, 
offers  that  which  is  addressed  to  his  affections  and  his  hopes — 
which  opens  for  himself  a  vista  into  heaven ;  and,  revealing  to 
him  the  holiness,  both  of  the  habitation,  and  of  the  highway  that 
leads  to  it,  instantly  betakes  him  unto  the  way  of  holiness. 

There  are  two  questions  which,  could  we  answer  in  a  way  that 
might  be  readily  apprehended,  would  go  far  to  satisfy  you,  as  to 
the  process  by  which  a  real  principle  of  faith  in  the  mind,  is  fol- 
lowed by  the  life  of  faith  in  the  history — so  as  to  land  every  hon- 
est believer  of  the  present  day,  in  those  very  activities  which  sig- 
nalized the  patriarchs  of  the  old  dispensation,  and  separated  them, 
by  a  holy  and  a  heavenward  walk,  from  the  general  habit  of  an 
unbelieving  world. 

The  first  of  these  questions  is — By  what  stepping-stone  is  a  be- 
liever conducted  from  his  faith  to  his  hope  ?  What  is  there,  in 
the  Christian  message,  that  warrants  him  to  single  out  heaven  as 
the  distinct  object  of  his  own  journeyings  through  the  world,  and 
his  own  preparations  for  it,  as  a  place  whither  he  might  bend  his 
footsteps,  and  to  which  he  might  look  forward,  as  the  home  and 
the  resting-place  of  his  own  special  expectations  ?  Had  it  been 
a  message  of  salvation  only  to  the  people  of  another  land,  he 
might  have  put  faith  in  it  without  drawing  hope  from  it.  And 
how  is  the  message  actually  constructed,  so  as  that  the  faith,  which 
he  places  therein,  should  light  up  the  animating  sentiment  of  hope 
in  his  bosom? 

Were  the  Gospel  but  a  message  of  salvation  to  some  foreign 
land,  there  would  be  no  link  by  which  faith  might  pass  into  hope. 
And  neither  would  this  transition  follow,  were  it  only  a  message 
to  some  of  our  own  neighborhood,  exclusive  of  ourselves.  But 
this  is  not  the  bearing  of  the  message.  It  carries  a  tender  of 
salvation  to  all.  It  points  the  eye  of  each,  and  of  every  man,  to 
an  open  heaven,  and  invites  him  to  enter  thereinto.  By  such  terms 
as,  all,  and  any,  and  every,  and  whosoever,  it  brings  its  offers  of 
reconciliation  most  specifically  to  bear  on  each  unit  of  the  human 
population.  Insomuch  that,  if  the  word  of  salvation  hath  come 
to  him,  the  offer  of  salvation  hath  been  made  to  him.  Just  as 
much  as  if  not  another  individual  but  himself  had  stood  in  need 
of  Christ's  propitiation,  is  the  whole  benefit  of  that  propitiation 
pressed  upon  his  acceptance.  Just  as  much  as  if  he  had  been  the 
solitary  and  the  sinful  occupier  of  the  only  world  where  rebellion 
against  heaven  was  known,  and  as  if  the  Bible  had  been  con- 
structed for  the  one  purpose  of  reclaiming  him  to  the  friendship 
of  his  offended  God,  has  that  Bible  come  to  his  door,  armed  with 
the  full  force  of  its  importunities  and  its  calls.     It  is  as  legitimately 


420  nALL's    TREATISE    ON    THE 

his  right  to  take  to  himself  the  call  of  reconciliation  that  is  sound- 
ed there,  as  if  put  into  his  hand  by  an  angel  from  the  sanctuary, 
with  a  special  bidding,  from  heaven's  Lord,  that  he  should  read, 
and  should  rejoice  in  it.  It  is  true,  that  this  is  not  the  way  in 
which  the  message  is  actually  brought  home  ;  and  that,  instead  of 
this,  the  everlasting  Gospel  is  preached  unto  them  that  dwell  on 
the  earth,  and  to  every  nation,  and  kindred,  and  tongue,  and 
people.  But,  while  thus  it  goeth  forth  diffusively  over  all,  it  send- 
eth  out  a  voice  w;hich  speaketh  distinctly  unto  each  ;  and,  in  vir- 
tue of  the  terms  that  we  have  now  specified,  does  it  happily  com- 
bine, a  wide  expansion  of  itself  over  the  face  of  the  world,  with 
a  pointed  application  of  itself  to  every  heart,  and  to  every  habi- 
tation. That  faith  may  become  hope,  nothing  more  is  necessary, 
than  to  believe  in  the  message,  according  to  the  sense  of  the 
message.  It  is  to  believe  with  understanding.  It  is  to  put  the 
right  interpretation  on  these  simple  words,  all,  and  any,  and  every. 
It  is  to  conceive  of  myself,  that  surely  I  am  within  the  scope  of 
a  vocabulary,  which  is  comprehensive  of  the  whole  species,  and 
not  exclusive  of  a  single  member  belonging  to  it.  I  cannot  be- 
lieve in  the  announcement,  that  Christ  "  tasted  death  for  every 
man,"  without  rejoicing  in  this,  that  He  hath  tasted  death  for  me. 
I  cannot  have  faith  in  the  invitation,  "  Let  whosoever  will,  come 
and  drink  of  the  water  of  life  freely,"  without  feeling  of  myself, 
that  I  have  been  made  the  object  of  a  marked  and  separate  en- 
treaty. It  is  thus  that  there  is  a  hope  of  faith,  as  well  as  a  hope  of 
experience.  There  is  a  hope  that  hangs  direct  on  the  faithfulness 
of  God.  The  man  who  argues  on  the  side  of  orthodoxy,  and 
feels  not  his  personal  interest  therein,  is  blind  to  the  important 
significancy  of  those  very  terms  in  which  the  doctrines  of  the 
Bible  have' been  conveyed  to  him.  He  either  knows  them  not,  or 
attends  to  them  not.  All  that  we  want  for  the  lighting  up  of  hope 
is  faith,  with  understanding  ;  and  only  grant  it  to  be  an  intelligent 
faith,  and  then  will  it  be  the  assured  expectation  of  things  hoped 
for. 

But  there  is  another  question  which  must  be  answered,  ere  we 
can  complete  the  analogy  between  the  state  of  an  expectant  under 
the  old,  and  of  an  expectant  under  the  new  dispensation.  We  can 
perceive  how  a  hope — a  hope  of  his  own  individual  preferment  to 
blessedness  and  glory,  may  arise  in  the  bosom  of  each,  from  the 
terms  in  which  both  the  Jewish  and  the  Christian  message  was 
conveyed  to  all  who  stood  within  reach  of  the  hearing  of  them. 
But  it'might  be  imagined  of  this  hope,  that  it  should  simply  find 
an  entrance  into  the  heart,  and  there  minister  of  its  own  sweet 
and  placid  sensations  to  the  inner  man.  What  is  there  in  it  that 
should  put  into  motion  the  intercourse,  or  connect  the  faith  of  a 
believer  with  that  new  and  busy  career  of  activity  on  which  he 
forthwith  embarks  himself?  We  can  understand  how  a  Christian, 
like  Abraham  of  old,  might  see  his  day  of  triumph  afar  off  and  be 


FAITH    AND    INFLUENCE    OF    THE    GOSPEL.  421 

glad.  But  what  is  there  in  the  mere  belief  of  the  things  which 
have  been  told  unto  him,  and  in  his  assured  expectation  of  those 
things  that  should  liken  his  history  to  that  of  Abraham,  who,  at 
the  bidding  of  a  voice  from  heaven,  submitted  himself  to  the  toils 
and  the  trials  of  a  new  obedience?  We  can  see  how  the  faith  of 
the  Gospel  might  germinate  that  specific  anticipation  of  heaven, 
which  might  give  to  the  mind  of  a  Christian  all  the  spiritual  eleva- 
tion of  Abraham?  But  by  what  distinct  impulse  is  it  that  this 
faith  originates  a  personal  movement  on  the  part  of  its  disciple,  so 
as  that  he  shall  walk  in  the  footsteps  of  his  father  Abraham  ?  We 
now  understand  the  pathway  between  faith  and  hope.  We  now 
want  to  understand  the  pathway  between  faith  and  service — and 
how  it  is  that  the  hope  which  gladdens  alike  the  patriarch  of  the 
old,  and  the  believer  of  the  new  economy,  should  further  stimulate 
them  alike  to  the  same  exertions  and  the  same  sacrifices. 

Now,  it  was  by  looking  to  the  terms  of  the  message,  according 
to  the  meaning  of  these  terms,  that  we  attempted  to  trace  the  con- 
nection between  faith  and  hope ;  so  it  is  in  this,  and  in  no  other 
way,  that  we  would  trace  the  connection  between  faith  and  obe- 
dience. The  accompaniment  of  such  a  term  as  that  of"  whoever," 
with  the  invitation  of  the  Gospel,  gives  me  to  understand  of  that 
invitation  as  directed  specifically  to  myself,  and  my  heart  responds 
to  it  accordingly.  And  the  accompaniment  of  such  a  sentence 
with  the  same  invitation,  as  that  "  he  who  turneth  to  Christ  must 
depart  from  his  iniquities,"  gives  me  to  understand,  that  while  I 
look  to  heaven  with  the  delightful  sensation  of  hope  in  my  bosom, 
I  must  also  look  to  it  with  the  diligence  of  an  intent  and  busy  trav- 
eller, who  knows  that  in  moving  thitherward,  he  must  move  him- 
self away  from  the  habit  and  character  and  earthly  desires  of  a 
world  lying  in  wickedness.  This  is  the  way,  and  we  know  of  no 
other,  by  which  faith  and  obedience  are  so  linked  together,  as  that 
when  the  one  enters  the  heart,  the  other  forthwith  comes  out  on 
the  history.  It  is  done  by  the  power  of  a  whole  faith  in  a  whole 
testimony.  It  is  by  keeping  the  ear  of  the  mind  open  to  the  whole 
utterance  of  that  voice  which  hath  spoken  to  us  from  heaven.  It 
is  by  treating  God's  communications  as  Abraham  of  old  did. 
When  he  heard  God  say,  "  This  is  the  land  which  I  give  unto 
thee,"  he  rejoiced  in  hope ;  and  when  he  heard  him  say,  "  Walk 
thou  before  me,  and  be  thou  perfect,"  he  went  forth  in  obedience. 
And  so  with  the  Christian,  who  can  both  look  with  glad  anticipa- 
tion to  eternal  life  as  the  gift  of  God  through  Jesus  Christ  our 
Lord,  and  who  can  labor  with  assiduity  for  the  same  eternal  life, 
as  knowing  that  the  unholy  and  the  unheavenly  shall  never  enter 
thereinto.  It  is  the  word  which  causes  him  to  hope — and  it  is  also 
the  word  which  causes  him  to  obey.  It  at  one  time  is  the  word 
of  promise,  and  at  another  the  word  of  authority — and  he,  an  hon- 
est believer,  listens  to  both,  and  proceeds  upon  both.  With  the 
docility  of  a  little  child,  he  accommodates  his  responses  to  the  les- 


422  hall's  treatise  on  the 

son  that  is  set  before  him — and,  at  one  and  the  same  time,  is  he  the 
most  joyful  in  hope  and  the  most  devoted  in  service. 

To  illustrate  and  enforce  this  latter  and  most  important  topic, 
forms  the  principal  subject  of  the  following  excellent  Treatise  of 
the  Rev.  Archibald  Hall,  u  On  the  Faith  and  Influence  of  the 
Gospel."  His  great  design  is  to  elucidate  the  nature  of  true  faith, 
and  to  show  its  practical  influence  on  the  heart  and  character  of 
the  believer.  The  attentive  reader  will  not  fail  to  perceive,  that 
a  real  and  appropriating  faith  of  the  truths  of  the  Gospel  is  a  very 
different  thing  from  the  mere  mental  perception  of  these  truths,  or 
the  cold  and  intellectual  abstractions  about  which  the  mind  may 
be  busied,  but  which  minister  neither  peace  nor  hope  to  the  mind, 
nor  exert  any  sanctifying  or  subduing  power  over  the  heart  and 
affections. 

There  are  no  two  terms  in  the  whole  New  Testament,  which 
stand  more  frequently  and  familiarly  associated  with  each  other, 
than  faith  and  obedience.  Wherever  the  privileges  and  blessings 
of  the  Gospel  are  truly  appropriated  by  faith,  the  precepts  of  the 
Gospel  maintain  their  authority  over  the  conduct  of  the  believer. 
Whenever  the  peace  of  the  Gospel  takes  up  its  residence  in  the 
heart,  the  practice  of  the  Gospel  comes  out  in  living  exemplifica- 
tion on  the  personal  character  and  accomplishments  of  the  believer. 
It  is  thus  that  faith  demonstrates  its  existence  in  the  heart,  by  its 
operation  on  the  character.  It  forms,  indeed,  the  principal  excel- 
lence of  the  following  Treatise,  that  it  exhibits  the  intimate  con- 
nection which  subsists  between  faith  and  obedience.  It  shows, 
that  though  faith  be  a  simple  principle,  yet  the  object  of  faith  is 
the  whole  testimony  of  God.  That  faith  has  to  do  not  merely 
with  one  set  of  truths,  but  that  it  has  to  do  with  all  the  truths 
which  are  contained  in  the  whole  of  God's  revelation.  Tiiat  while 
the  truth,  that  "  Christ  died  for  our  sins,"  exerts  its  appropriate  in- 
fluence on  the  mind  of  the  believer,  and  he  is  thus  made  to  feel 
the  charm  of  the  peace-speaking  blood  of  Christ,  the  truth,  that 
'•  without  holiness  no  man  can  see  the  Lord,"  also  exerts  its  ap- 
propriate influence  on  his  mind  ;  and  he  is  thus  urged  on  to  "  per- 
fect holiness  in  the  fear  of  the  Lord.''  When  the  believer  is  made 
to  know,  that  "  there  is  no  condemnation  to  them  who  are  in 
Christ  Jesus,"  he  is  also  made  to  know,  that  "  they  walk  not  after 
the  flesh,  but  after  the  Spirit."  It  is  thus  that  his  mind  comes  un- 
der the  various  influences,  which  the  various  truths  of  God's  tes- 
timony are  fitted  to  exercise  over  it ;  and  while  he  is  a  trusting 
and  rejoicing  disciple,  he  is,  at  the  same  time,  a  watchful,  praying, 
and  obedient  disciple. 

But  faith,  by  opening  up  a  new  region  of  manifestation  to  the 
mind  of  a  believer,  brings  his  heart  into  contact  with  those  mo- 
tives and  influences  which  give  rise  to  the  new  obedience  of  the 
Gospel.  When  contemplating  Jesus  Christ  and  him  crucified,  he 
builds  on  this  all  his  hopes  of  acceptance  before  God,  he  finds  not 


FAITH    AND    INFLUENCE    OF    THE    GOSPEL.  423 

only  peace,  but  a  purifying  influence  descend  on  his  heart.  It  re- 
moves the  spirit  of  bondage  and  of  fear,  which  weighed  down  the 
soul  to  the  inactivity  of  despair,  and  introduces  the  spirit  of  love 
and  adoption,  which  makes  him  run  with  alacrity  in  the  way  of 
all  God's  commandments.  So  long  as  the  question  of  his  guilt  re- 
mained unsettled,  instead  of  loving,  he  could  only  dread,  the  Being 
whom  he  had  offended  ;  but  when  a  sense  of  forgiveness  enters 
his  heart,  he  enters,  with  hopeful  and  assured  footsteps,  on  a  course 
of  cheerful  obedience.  When  love  to  God,  which  the  conscious- 
ness of  guilt  kept  away,  is  introduced  into  his  soul  by  faith  in  the 
atoning  blood  of  Christ,  the  inspiration  of  a  new  and  invigorating 
principle  takes  possession  of  the  believer,  and  he  becomes  ani- 
mated with  the  life  and  the  love  of  real  godliness.  Faith  in  the 
doctrine  of  the  atonement  is  as  much  the  turning  point  of  a  new 
character,  as  of  a  new  hope.  It  is  here  Gospel  obedience  takes 
its  commencement,  because  it  is  here  that  filial  love  and  confi- 
dence in  God  take  their  rise.  Christ  came  not  only  to  redeem  us 
from  all  iniquity,  but  to  "  purify  us  unto  himself  a  peculiar  people, 
zealous  of  good  wrorks."  The  reception  of  Christ  is  always  ac- 
companied with  the  gift  of  the  renewing  Spirit,  whose  peculiar 
office  it  is  to  promote  our  growth  in  grace,  and  to  perfect  us  in 
holiness ;  and  the  genuine  believer  will  always  experience  the 
truth  and  the  reality  of  the  apostle's  declaration — "  If  any  man  be 
in  Christ,  he  is  a  new  creature." 


DISTINCTION, 

BOTH  IN  PRINCIPLE  AND  EFFECT, 

BETWEEN 

A  LEGAL  CHARITY  FOR  THE  RELIEF  OF  INDIGENCE, 

.    AND 

A  LEGAL  CHARITY  FOR  THE  RELIEF  OF  DISEASE. 

[Read  before  ike  Royal  Institute  of  France.] 


1.  It  had  been  good  for  the  well-being  of  states,  if  legislation 
had  at  all  times  kept  within  its  own  proper  boundaries — whereas, 
by  stepping  beyond  these,  it  has  often  marred  the  interest  which  it 
meant  to  provide  for,  and  inflicted  a  sore  distemper  on  human  so- 
ciety. This  has  nowhere  been  more  strikingly  exemplified,  and 
in  a  way  more  instructive  to  the  governments  of  other  countries, 
than  by  the  Poor-law  of  England. 

2.  We  often  hear  of  the  wisdom  of  nature,  as  evinced  in  the 
laws  and  adaptations  of  the  material  world  ;  but  the  same  wisdom 
may  be  as  visibly  discerned  in  the  frame  and  principles  of  our 
mental  constitution — the  spontaneous  working  of  which  often  leads 
to  a  far  better  result,  than  all  the  skill  and  vigilance  of  statesmen 
can  possibly  effectuate.  A  commerce  which  results  from  the  free 
enterprise  of  individuals,  each  devising  and  laboring  for  his  own 
special  advantage,  is  greatly  more  flourishing  and  more  conducive 
to  the  real  prosperity  of  a  kingdom,  than  a  commerce  which  is 
nourished  by  the  bounties,  and  at  the  same  time  guided  by  the 
regulations  of  a  Statute-book.  The  whole  of  political  economy 
bears  evidence  to  the  perfection  of  what  may  be  termed  the  natu- 
ral system  of  human  industry  and  human  exchanges — in  opposi- 
tion to  the  artificial  system,  that,  whether  in  the  form  of  encourage- 
ments or  restraints,  acts  with  all  the  mischievous  influence  of  a 
disturbing  force  on  the  operations  of  a  previous  and  better  me- 
chanism. 

3.  One  of  the  most  interesting  verifications  of  this  remark  may 
be  seen  in  the  history  of  pauperism.  It  is  quite  palpable  that  na- 
ture has  at  least  made  some  provision  in  the  very  make  and  con- 


MEMOIR  PRESENTED  TO  THE  ROYAL  INSTITUTE  OF  FRANCE.       425 

stitution  of  humanity,  for  the  alleviation,  often  prevention,  of  the 
ills  of  extreme  want.  It,  in  the  first  place,  has  endowed  man 
with  a  strong  and  urgent  principle  of  self-preservation,  and  has 
superadded  the  goading  agonies  of  hunger  to  the  fear  of  perish- 
ing— so  as  to  afford  the  most  powerful  stimulus  that  can  well  be 
imagined,  for  the  utmost  possible  exertion  to  secure  an  adequate 
and  regular  supply  of  food.  In  the  second  place,  it  has  implanted 
a  strong  relative  affection,  as  that  of  parents  to  children,  of  chil- 
dren back  again  to  parents,  even  of  more  distant  kindred  for  each 
other — so  as  to  enlist  the  energies  of  all  the  effective  members  in 
a  household,  for  the  maintenance,  not  of  themselves  only,  but  of 
the  most  weak  and  helpless  under  their  own  roof;  and,  over  and 
above  this,  so  as  often  to  prompt  them  to  the  large  assistance  of 
those,  who,  though  beyond  the  limits  of  the  home  in  which  they 
live,  are  yet  of  the  same  blood  and  family.  But  there  is  a  third 
principle,  and  from  which  it  is  obvious  that  nature  meant  the  kind- 
ness of  man  for  man  to  extend  over  a  wider  field  of  operation 
than  within  the  circle  of  the  same  relationship — the  principle  of 
compassion,  that  powerful  impellent  to  deeds  of  generosity  ;  and 
in  virtue  of  which,  it  is  nearly  as  intolerable  for  one  man  to  see 
another  in  the  agonies  of  hunger,  as  to  be  the  victim  of  these 
agonies  himself.  This  opens  up  two  resources  for  the  relief  of 
poverty — First  the  kindness  of  poor  to  poor,  or  rather  of  imme- 
diate neighbors  for  each  other,  living  in  the  same  vicinity  and  oc- 
cupying nearly  the  same  level  on  the  ground-floor  of  society — 
Secondly  the  kindness  of  rich  to  poor,  which  we  place  last  in  the 
enumeration  ;  because  truly  we  regard  it  as  the  least  powerful 
and  the  least  prolific  of  the  whole — believing  as  we  do,  that,  in 
the  principle  of  self-preservation  whereby  each  man  is  led  to  care 
for  himself,  and  the  principle  of  relative  affection  whereby  each 
man  is  led  to  care  for  those  of  his  own  kindred,  and  the  principle 
of  compassion  whereby  each  man  is  led  to  care  for  those  of  his 
own  acquaintance  or  neighborhood  who  have  fallen  into  distress, 
we  behold  the  most  important  of  nature's  ordinations — first  for 
the  prevention,  and  then  for  the  relief,  of  extreme  want  and 
wretchedness  in  the  world. 

4.  But,  to  make  our  reasoning  still  more  distinct  and  conclusive, 
we  shall  attempt  to  demonstrate  of  each  of  these  principles,  sepa- 
rately and  in  order,  that  in  respect  of  beneficial  operation,  each  is 
so  injured  and  enfeebled  by  the  hurtful  influence  of  a  public  charity 
for  the  relief  of  indigence — as  altogether  to  have  greatly  deteri- 
orated the  condition  of  the  poor  and  working  classes,  in  every 
neighborhood  where  such  a  provision  has  been  established. 

5.  And  first  then  it  is  obvious,  that  a  law  by  the  state,  of  public 
and  proclaimed  charity  for  the  relief  of  indigence,  must  slacken 
the  operation  of  what  has  been  termed  the  strongest  law  of  na- 
ture— even  the  law  of  self-preservation.  It  tends  to  supersede 
the  care  and  industry,  which,  but  for  its  own  mischievous  and  se- 

54 


426  MEMOIR    PRESENTED    TO    THE 

ducing  influence,  a  man  might  have  otherwise  put  forth — in  labor- 
ing to  realize  a  sufficiency  for  himself  and  for  his  children.  It  is 
a  law  of  exemption  from  toil,  from  prudence,  from  foresight  and 
economy,  from  every  restraint  on  the  gratifications  of  present  and 
powerful  appetite  ;  and  from  all  those  busy  expedients  wherewith 
a  man.  who  is  left  to  depend  on  himself,  devises  for  the  security 
or  the  advancement  of  his  own  condition  in  the  world.  A  man 
feels  discharged  from  all  strenuousness  or  self-denial,  when  the 
care  of  his  own  subsistence  is  thus  taken  out  of  his  hands  ;  and 
the  state  undertakes  to  do  for  him  that  which,  but  for  its  inter- 
ference, he  would  infallibly  and  in  obedience  to  the  calls  of  hun- 
ger and  necessity  have  otherwise  done  for  himself.  A  universal 
guarantee  against  starvation,  operates  towards  a  universal  relaxa- 
tion of  industry  and  providential  habits  among  the  families  of  a 
land.  A  man  will  not  accumulate  of  his  savings  against  the  evil 
day,  if  that  day  have  already  been  provided  for  by  the  institutions 
of  his  country.  He  is  thus  tempted  to  idleness,  nay  tempted  either 
to  profligacy  or  premature  marriage,  by  the  expenses  of  which  he 
is  no  longer  deterred — when  these  expenses  are  shifted  from  him- 
self to  a  public  and  compulsory  fund,  raised  for  all  sorts  of  desti- 
tution, in  whatever  way  that  destitution  may  have,  been  formed. 
It  is  thus  that  many  a  single  parish  in  England  holds  forth  in  min- 
iature the  example  of  an  over-peopled  world.  It  labors  and  is  in 
distress  from  the  redundancy  of  its  own  numbers  ;  and  whether 
this  excess  proceeds  from  the  number  of  illegitimate  births,  or  from 
the  regular  family  births  of  too  early  and  too  frequent  marriages 
— certain  it  is,  that  there  are  thousands  of  parochial  communities 
in  England,  where  the  overplus  of  laborers  has  effected  an  unnatu- 
ral reduction  of  price  in  the  labor  market — so  as  to  have  inflicted 
a  sore  and  general  degradation  on  the  circumstances  of  the  work- 
ing classes.  It  is  thus  that  the  Poor-law  of  England  has  created 
far  more  of  want  and  wretchedness  than  it  can  by  any  possibility 
relieve ;  or,  in  other  words,  a  law  in  the  constitution  of  the  coun- 
try, by  superseding  a  wiser  and  better  law  in  the  constitution  of 
human  nature,  has  depressed  the  condition  of  the  lower  orders  in 
society,  and  aggravated  tenfold  the  poverty  which  it  had  vainly 
proposed  to  do  away. 

6.  But  secondly,  there  is  another  law,  inserted  by  the  hand  of 
Nature  in  the  mechanism  of  our  constitution  ;  and  which,  when 
teft  undisturbed  to  its  own  proper  direction  and  force,  goes  far  to 
alleviate  the  ills  of  poverty,  we  mean  the  law  of  relative  or  family 
affection — as  of  parents  to  children,  of  children  back  again  to 
parents,  of  brothers  and  sisters  to  each  other ;  and  even  of  more 
distant  members  in  the  same  circle  of  relationship.  And,  besides 
this,  there  is  a  certain  sentiment  of  pride  which  comes  in  aid  of 
the  more  intense  kindness  that  operates  within  the  limits  of  a  com- 
mon household,  or,  more  extended  still,  of  a  common  kindred, 
though  parted  into  separate  domestic  establishments,  and  in  virtue 


ROYAL    INSTITUTE    OF    FRANCE.  427 

of  which  many  a  sacrifice  is  made  to  support  and  to  save  each 
other  from  the  degradations  of  charity,  so  long  as  charity  is  not 
legalized.  But  both  affection  and  honor  give  way,  before  the 
temptations  of  a  public  and  authorized  provision  for  the  relief  of 
indigence;  and  accordingly  in  England,  under  its  late  and  still 
under  its  present  parochial  economy,  there  do  occur  the  most 
scandalous  desertions  of  very  near  relatives,  and  which,  by  the 
force  of  habit  and  under  the  countenance  of  general  example,  have 
ceased  to  be  scandalous  there.  Aged  parents,  instead  of  being 
taken  into  the  houses  of  their  children  now  advanced  to  manhood 
and  in  a  state  of  sufficiency  for  supporting  those  to  whom  they 
owe  their  birth,  are  abandoned  for  life  to  the  cheerless  imprison- 
ment of  a  Poors-house ;  and  on  the  other  hand,  parents,  in  the  full 
vigor  of  manhood  and  the  natural  protectors  of  their  own  families, 
have  been  tempted  in  hundreds  perhaps  in  thousands  every  year  to 
abscond  from  their  dwellings,  and  leave  all  the  inmates  to  the 
charity  of  the  parish  bound  by  law  to  provide  for  them.  We 
have  counted  in  one  newspaper  no  less  than  forty  advertisements 
of  runaway  husbands  from  the  town  of  Manchester,  who  had  left 
their  families  on  the  parish  fund,  and  for  the  discovery  and  appre- 
hension of  whom  a  reward  was  offered  by  the  managers.  This 
unnatural  desertion  of  their  own  kinsfolk  is  the  epidemic  vice  of 
England — only,  however,  because  a  legal  guarantee  against  the 
starvation  of  those  who  are  thus  deserted  is  its  epidemic  tempta- 
tion. It  is  in  striking  contrast  with  the  general  habit  of  Scotland, 
in  the  great  majority  of  whose  parishes  such  a  guarantee  is  prac- 
tically unknown  ;  and  where,  almost  universally,  such  an  aban- 
donment, either  of  parents  by  their  own  children  or  of  children 
by  their  own  parents,  would,  as  a  thing  of  exceeding  rare  occur- 
rence, be  deemed  a  monstrous  exception  to  the  most  binding 
duties,  the  most  sacred  proprieties  of  Christian  and  humanized  life. 
We  have  already  considered  the  effect  of  a  law  of  pauperism,  in 
releasing  man  from  the  duties  which  he  owes  to  himself.  Its 
effect  in  releasing  him  from  the  duties  which  he  owes  to  those  of 
his  own  relationship,  is  no  less  obvious.  In  both  instances,  it 
directly  tends  to  multiply  the  number  of  paupers,  and,  great  as 
this  economic  evil  is,  it  is  surpassed  by  the  moral  evil  of  a  system, 
under  which  the  sustenance  of  man  is  made  independent  of  his 
own  virtue  and  prudence  ;  and  the  sustenance  even  of  his  nearest 
relatives  is  alike  independent  of  those  parental  and  filial  affections, 
which  are  nature's  strongest  securities  for  the  maintenance  and 
uprearing  of  successive  families  in  the  world.  Surely  better  than 
to  have  thus  counteracted  such  urgent  and  universal  principles  as 
these,  would  it  have  been  that  the  hand  of  power  had  not  inter- 
fered with  them  ;  but  leaving  them  to  their  own  native  and 
spontaneous  operation,  that  legislation  had  kept  within  her  own 
rightful  province,  and  let  the  business  of  charity  alone. 

7.  But  thirdly,  besides  the  strong  feeling  of  relative  affection 


428  MEMOIR    PRESENTED    TO    THE 

between  men  and  men  of  the  same  kindred,  Nature  hath  estab- 
lished another  guarantee  against  the  ills  of  extreme  want ;  and 
another  feeling  strong  too  and  of  wider  operation  than  the  former, 
we  mean  the  feeling  of  compassion — of  which  all  might  be  the 
objects ;  but  which  acts  with  peculiar  force  and  great  practical 
effect,  between  men  and  men  of  the  same  neighborhood.  And  so 
it  is  not  to  be  told  how  much  is  given  and  received  throughout  the 
families,  even  of  the  poorest  localities,  by  the  internal  operation  of 
charity  amongst  themselves.  It  is  true  that  the  contributions  of  each 
might  be  individually  small,  but  this  is  made  up  for  by  their  num- 
ber and  constancy.  It  is  quite  palpable,  even  on  the  most  cursory 
observation,  how  mutually  helpful,  by  personal  service  and  attend- 
ance, they  are  to  each  other,  in  seasons  of  sickness ;  but  it  re- 
quires much  intercourse,  and  a  very  intimate  acquaintance  with 
the  habitudes  of  the  poor  who  are  congregated  together  in  the 
same  community,  to  be  made  sure  of  their  great  mutual  generos- 
ity, in  imparting,  from  their  own  scanty  share  of  the  necessaries 
of  life,  to  the  naked  and  the  hungry,  and  the  members,  whether 
young  or  old,  of  those  bereaved  households  whom  the  hand  of 
death  has  deprived  of  their  parents  or  natural  protectors.  Such, 
nevertheless,  is  the  actual  finding  of  all  who  have  given  themselves 
to  the  business  of  observation  on  this  most  interesting  walk.  The 
Reverend  Mr.  Carlyle  of  Dublin  informs  me,  that  he  can  depone, 
from  his  minute  and  statistical  acquaintance  with  one  of  the  poor- 
est sections  in  the  city  of  Dublin — that  the  amount  given  and 
received  by  the  operation  of  a  charity  purely  internal,  or  which 
reciprocates  between  the  families  of  the  district,  exceeds  all  com- 
putation. This  fully  accords  with  my  own  experience,  when  min- 
ister in  Glasgow,  where  I  had  a  parish  of  ten  thousand  people, 
the  poorest  of  the  poor  ;  and  where,  from  instances  too  numerous 
to  be  mentioned,  I  learned  the  delightful  lesson — that  the  sponta- 
neous charity  of  neighbors  for  each  other  was  a  more  certain  as 
well  as  more  abundant  source  of  relief,  in  cases  of  extreme  indi- 
gence, than  that  legal  charity,  by  which,  when  in  full  operation, 
the  other  is  well  nigh  superseded.  Never  did  a  case  occur  with- 
out the  most  timely  forthgoings  of  aid  and  sympathy  from  the  im- 
mediate neighbors — insomuch  that  I  have  often  expressed  it  as  my 
confidence,  that,  if  surrounded  by  human  eyes  and  human  ears,  I 
had  no  fear  of  human  feelings  being  also  awakened,  so  as  to  make 
it  a  moral  impossibility  that  any  man  should  starve  in  the  sight  of 
his  fellows.  Perhaps  the  most  vivid  illustration  of  this  cheering 
truth  in  the  history  of  our  nature  is  to  be  gathered  from  Buxton's 
Tour  through  the  Prisons  of  Great  Britain.  The  legal  allowance 
of  bread  to  the  prisoners  varies  at  different  places.  In  Bristol  it 
was  below  the  par  of  human  subsistence.  The  allowance  was 
too  small  for  the  criminals  ;  and  for  the  debtors  there  was  no 
allowance  at  all.  The  prisoners  of  the  latter  class,  therefore,  are 
left,  either  to  the  assistance  of  their  friends  or  to  the  charity  of  the 


ROYAL    INSTITUTE    OF    FRANCE.  129 

public.  But  it  occasionally  happened,  that  both  these  resources 
failed  them — when  they  would  have  inevitably  perished  of  hun- 
ger but  for  the  generosity  of  the  criminals,  who,  rather  than  brook 
the  spectacle  of  a  fellow-creature  suffering  under  one  of  the  sorest 
agonies  of  nature,  shared  their  own  scanty  pittance  along  with 
them.  This  I  hold  to  be  one  of  the  finest  examples  which  can  be 
quoted  of  the  strength  of  human  compassion — proving  that  it  sur- 
vives the  depraving  process  which  conducts  a  criminal  to  his  cell. 
We  have  only  to  carry  back  this  experience  from  prisons  to 
parishes,  in  order  to  be  convinced  of  the  safety,  wherewith  the 
evils  of  extreme  want  might  generally  be  left  to  the  workings  of 
individual  sympathy  in  every  neighborhood  where  they  occur. 
Jf  a  man  in  the  agonies  of  hunger,  and  giving  authentic  tokens  of 
this  sore  distress,  be  within  sight  and  hearing  of  his  fellows — then, 
by  an  urgent  and  irrepressible  law  of  nature,  do  they  feel  the 
promptings  of  a  desire  to  relieve  him  which  they  are  unable  to 
resist.  But  not  if  a  law  of  the  state  have  ordained  its  own  pre- 
scribed and  authoritative  method  of  relieving.  Such  a  law  has 
practically  the  effect  of  absolving  every  man  from  the  obligation 
of  caring  for  his  neighbors  ;  and  by  laying  its  arrest  on  a  thou- 
sand rills  of  beneficence,  which  would  else  have  flowed  in  refresh- 
ing and  kindly  circulation  throughout  the  mass  of  society,  it  has 
shut  far  more  copious  and  effective  sources  of  relief  for  human 
wretchedness  than  itself  can  open. 

8.  The  arrest  thus  laid  on  the  popular  habit  of  mutual  service 
and  sympathy  between  poor  and  poor,  will  prove  a  far  greater 
loss  to  the  destitute  than  can  be  possibly  made  up  to  them  by  all 
the  dispensations  of  legal  charity.  The  spontaneous  offerings  of 
private  benevolence  will  be  sadly  abridged — because  men  naturally 
feel  themselves  released  from  the  care  of  all  the  want  and  suffering 
around  them,  when  made  to  understand  that  the  State  has  taken 
that  care  upon  themselves.  Those  of  the  same  rank  with  the  de- 
pendent and  the  needy  keep  back  from  the  work  of  relief,  because 
of  an  imagined  sufficiency  in  the  law,  which  meanwhile  is  never 
realized.  Those  of  a  higher  rank,  the  wealthy  on  whom  the  bur- 
den of  the  compulsory  provision  is  laid,  have  an  additional  reason 
for  their  insensibility  to  the  calls  of  distress.  It  is  not  merely  that 
their  forced  contributions  to  the  Poor-rate  supersede,  in  their  own 
minds,  the  obligation  of  any  further,  or  free-will  offering.  But  the 
truth  is,  that  the  whole  effect  of  such  an  artificial  system  of  charity 
is  to  banish  from  its  ministrations  all  the  better  and  kindlier  feel- 
ings of  our  nature.  What  is  given  by  the  ordination  of  law  is 
given  without  good-will  ;  and  what  is  received  by  the  same  ordi- 
nation is  received  without  gratitude.  That,  which  ought  at  all 
times  to  have  been  a  thing  of  love,  is  transformed  into  a  thing  of 
fierce  and  fiery  litigation.  The  clear  and  right  proceeding  in  the 
management  of  our  nature — were  to  leave  to  justice  the  things 
of  justice,  and  to  humanity  the  things  of  humanity.     But  the  first 


430 


MEMOIR    PRESENTED    TO    THE 


has  been  made  to  usurp  the  province  of  the  second  ;  and  in  the 
confusion  of  these  two  moral  elements,  which  should  have  ever 
been  kept  distinct  from  each  other,  the  one  party  have  been  led  to 
demand  what  they  ought  to  have  supplicated  ;  and  the  other  party, 
in  the  attitude  of  defensive  jealousy,  stoutly  to  withhold  what  in 
the  exercise  of  an  enforced  compassion  they  would  freely  and 
willingly  have  given.  This  will  account  for  the  state  of  mutual 
exasperation  which  obtained,  and  which  recent  changes  have  for 
a  time  at  least  only  inflamed  the  more,  between  the  paupers  and 
the  proprietors  of  England  ;  and  the  loss  to  a  great  extent  of  their 
spontaneous  liberality  must  be  added  to  the  other  and  still  larger 
privations,  which,  under  the  guise  of  kindness,  the  law  of  a  com- 
pulsorv  provision  for  the  poor  has  entailed  on  the  victims  of  its 
folly. 

9.  Shortly  then  to  recapitulate  the  four  causes  of  deterioration 
in  the  comforts  of  the  poor,  which  the  allowances  of  no  public 
charity  can  by  any  possibility  countervail — we  refer  once  more — 
First,  to  the  augmenting  improvidence  and  idleness  which  are« 
generated  by  the  system — Secondly,  to  the  reduction  which  it 
effects  on  that  mutual  kindness,  which,  in  a  natural  state  of  things, 
obtains  between  those  of  the  same  kindred — Thirdly,  to  a  similar 
reduction  made  by  it  on  those  interchanges  of  sympathy  and  aid, 
which  take  place  among  the  poor  themselves  of  the  same  neigh- 
borhood, when  the  laws  of  their  country  do  not  contravene  the 
laws  and  tendencies  of  their  own  moral  nature — and  Lastly,  the 
alienation  which  it  begets  of  the  rich  from  the  poor,  whom  it  ar- 
rays into  two  hostile  parties  against  each  other — the  one  fiercely 
clamoring  for  those  imagined  rights,  of  which  they  never  would 
have  dreamed,  had  not  this  perverse  and  mischievous  law  of 
pauperism  inspired  the  notion  of  them  ;  and  the  other  party  as 
fiercely  resisting  the  encroachments  on  their  property  of  that  popu- 
lar demand,  which  they  fear  will  be  ever  increasing  and  never 
satisfied.  We  are  not  to  wonder,  that,  with  such  powerful  coun- 
teractions, the  number  of  poor  is  found  greatly  to  outstrip  the  pro- 
vision which  is  made  for  them  ;  and  that  a  law  which  carries  in 
it  an  aspect  of  munificence  to  the  lower  orders  of  society,  has  in 
truth  depressed  their  condition,  and  aggravated  the  evils  which  it 
meant  to  remedy  or  alleviate. 

10.  It  would  detain  us  too  long  from  the  main  subject  of  this 
essay,  did  we  say  all  that  is  important  to  be  noticed  or  known, 
respecting  the  utter  powerlessness  of  law — if  it  proceed  in  the  way 
of  a  public  and  positive  administration  of  relief,  even  to  abridge, 
and  far  less  to  do  away  with  the  indigence  of  the  land.  But  we 
cannot  omit  to  assign  a  great  master  reason,  why  the  consequence 
of  such  a  law  is  the  very  opposite  of  this — so  that,  instead  of 
abridging,  it  is  sure  not  only  to  multiply  the  wants  of  the  poor  ; 
but  to  effect  a  great  and  general  deterioration  in  the  circumstances 
of  the  working  classes  at  large.     We  advert  to  the  undoubted 


ROYAL    INSTITUTE    OF    FRANCE.  431 

stimulus,  which  a  Poor-law  gives  to  population — both  adding  to 
the  frequency  and  the  precipitation  of  marriages  :  and  thereby 
causing,  not  only  a  great  number  of  families,  but  of  larger  families 
than  before.  It  is  thus  that  the  market  for  labor  comes  to  be  over- 
stocked, and  the  sure  effect  of  this  over  proportion  of  laborers  is 
the  under  price  of  labor.  The  greater  the  number  of  workmen 
the  smaller  must  be  the  wages ;  and  it  gives  a  fearful  aggravation 
to  this  mischief,  that  a  very  small  addition  to  the  number  of  labor- 
ers, creates  a  very  great  reduction  in  the  wages  which  are  paid 
to  them.  Let  there  be  but  the  excess  of  one  twentieth  in  the 
quantity  of  labor ;  and  we  mistake  the  consequence,  if  we  think 
that  there  will  be  only  the  fall  of  one  twentieth  in  the  remunera- 
tion which  is  made  to  it.  Even  so  few  as  a  twentieth  part  of  the 
whole  number,  unemployed,  and  soliciting  admission  in  the  places 
already  occupied  and  full  by  those  who  have  gone  before  them, 
would  create  so  intense  a  competition  throughout  the  general  body 
of  workmen  as  might  bring  down  wages  one-fourth,  one-third,  or 
even  one-half,  of  what  they  might  be,  were  the  number  of  human 
beings  in  no  more  than  equal  proportion  to  the  demand  for  their 
industry.  It  is  thus  that  the  whole  body  of  the  common  people 
suffer  a  general  and  severe  depression  even  from  a  slight  redun- 
dancy in  their  numbers  ;  and  legislation  is  sure  to  find  itself  em- 
barked in  a  vain  enterprise,  when  it  attempts  to  overtake  this 
constantly  increasing  destitution,  by  a  larger  dispensation  of 
charity  than  before.  In  an  economy  of  legalized  pauperism,  the 
necessities  and  the  demands  ever  multiply  beyond  the  supplies — 
as  in  England,  where  the  gigantic  expenditure  of  eight  millions 
was  lavished  on  the  relief  of  that  poverty  which  its  own  system 
may  be  said  to  have  created  ;  and  where,  in  many  of  its  parishes, 
the  sum  necessary  for  the  maintenance  of  the  poor  had  nearly 
overtaken  the  rent  of  the  land.  It  was  high  time  to  review  an 
administration  so  replete  with  evils ;  and  which  every  year  was 
rendering  more  burdensome  and  oppressive  than  before.  It  re- 
mains to  be  seen  whether  the  great  abridgments  which  have  been 
effected,  in  consequence  of  the  last  reforms  on  the  pauperism  of 
England,  are  but  temporary  :  and  the  effect  of  that  more  rigorous 
administration,  which,  however  natural  at  the  outset  of  a  new  pro- 
cess, may  afterwards  relax — when  the  native  principle  of  the 
whole  system  may  again  develop  its  powers  of  mischievous  ex- 
pansion, and  prove  of  the  legal  and  compulsory  provision  for  in- 
digence, that  no  ingenuity  of  man  can  repress  its  overgrowth.  It 
may  require  the  experience  of  some  years  to  determine  this  ques- 
tion. 

II.  The  most  important  change  which  has  taken  place  in  their 
management  of  the  poor,  is  the  substitution  of  what  is  termed  in- 
door relief,  for  those  allowances  which  the  paupers  wont  to  re- 
ceive at  their  own  houses  ;  and  which  are  now  in  a  great  meas- 
ure superseded,  by  the  admission  of  those  who  apply  for  legal 


432  MEMOIR    PRESENTED    TO    THE 

charity  to  a  general  alms-house  erected  for  the  district— often 
comprising  a  good  many  parishes.  In  this  way  the  relief  is  made 
greatly  more  unpalatable  to  the  applicants.  It  is  held  out  to  them 
in  the  most  repulsive  form.  If  they  consent  to  accept  of  it,  it  is 
at  the  expense  of  liberty  and  home,  and  all  those  old  associations 
of  place  and  neighborhood,  which  they  are  forced  to  renounce  for 
the  discipline  and  confinement  of  the  great  public  asylum  which 
has  been  provided  for  them.  It  is  thus  that  the  treatment  of  pov- 
erty is  assimilated  to  the  treatment  of  crime.  The  inmates  of  the 
institution  receive  a  maintenance — but  a  perpetual  imprisonment, 
though  somewhat  mitigated  by  certain  relaxations,  is  the  penalty 
which  they  have  to  pay  for  it. 

12.  The  experiment  is  yet  far  from  being  completed,  but  the 
progress  of  it  is  highly  instructive  as  far  as  it  has  gone.  In  some 
parishes,  every  pauper  who  under  the  former  regime  was  in  the 
habit  of  receiving  out-door  relief;  but  who  in  exchange  for  this, 
was  required  under  the  present  system  to  become  the  inmate  of 
an  asylum — has  refused  the  alternative  and  withdrawn  his  name 
from  the  lists  and  the  allowances  of  pauperism  altogether.  It  is  thus 
that  many  thousands  of  these  parochial  pensioners  all  over  Eng- 
land, have  been  driven  by  the  severities  or  terrors  of  the  new 
system  from  the  domain  of  pauperism  ;  and,  after  betaking  them- 
selves to  their  own  resources,  do  in  fact  find  a  sufficiency  in  these 
for  an  independence  and  a  comfort  which  they  never  formerly 
enjoyed.  This  history,  repeated  and  exemplified  in  thousands  of 
the  parishes  in  England,  is  rich  in  principle,  and  fraught  with  the 
discovery  of  an  important  truth.  It  proves  that  there  was  no 
call,  no  natural  necessity,  for  that  part  at  least  of  the  enormous 
expenditure  of  the  former  system  from  which  they  are  now  re- 
lieved— and  that  not  by  any  skilfulness  in  the  management  of 
their  new  system  ;  but  by  the  mere  repulsion  of  its  discourage- 
ments, and  of  the  dread  which  is  inspired  by  it.  Instead  then  of 
boasting  of  the  wisdom  of  their  new  economy,  they  have  far 
greater  reason  to  acknowledge  the  egregious  folly  of  their  old 
one  ;  and  when  in  so  many  of  their  parishes,  they  witness  the 
palpable  fact,  that  the  great  majority  of  their  former  paupers, 
after  being  deprived  of  their  old  allowances,  can  contrive  to  live 
and  in  all  appearance  as  comfortably  as  before — this  might  lead 
them  to  apprehend,  that,  to  a  great  extent  at  least,  the  artificial 
charity  of  law  is  uncalled  for,  and  even  prepare  them  for  the 
conclusion  that  it  perhaps  were  better  if  the  law  could  be  dis- 
pensed with  altogether. 

13.  But  perhaps  it  is  too  much  to  expect,  that  a  country  shall 
so  speedily  retrace  its  way,  and  so  as  to  make  even  in  one  gene- 
ration, a  total  recovery  of  itself  from  the  error  of  centuries.  But 
other  countries,  at  least,  may  learn  a  lesson  from  the  experience 
of  England.  They  should  know  how  to  make  a  right  interpre- 
tation of  the  abridgment  which  is  now  being  made  on  the  ex- 


ROYAI,    INSTITUTE    OF    FRANCE.  433 

penses  of  English  pauperism.  It  demonstates  that  there  is  no 
necessity,  either  in  nature  or  in  the  state  of  human  society,  for 
such  a  system  at  all ;  and  it  is  therefore  to  be  hoped,  that  other 
nations  will  avoid  that  great  blunder  in  the  domestic  policy  of  Eng- 
land, which  has  been  fraught  with  so  many  evils  to  all  the  classes 
of  society,  and  to  none  more  than  to  the  poor  themselves.  For- 
eigners are  far  more  likely  to  profit  from  the  history  of  this  great 
and  memorable  delusion  than  the  country  itself  which  has  been 
the  victim  of  it,  and  which  at  this  moment  makes  striking  display 
of  the  tenacity  of  inveterate  and  long-established  error,  in  ex- 
tending the  same  hurtful  policy  to  Ireland — thereby  to  aggravate 
the  distempers  of  that  unhappy  land. 

14.  And  it  is  further  instructive  to  observe  the  expedient  by 
which  it  is  attempted  to  correct  this  wrong  legislation — not  by 
abolishing  the  legislation,  but  by  counteracting  it  with  other  legis- 
gislation,  wrong  too,  though  in  an  opposite  direction  to  the  former. 
Thus,  a  compulsory  provision  for  the  poor  wears  an  expression 
of  kindness  to  the  humbler  classes  of  society.  But  when  pauper- 
ism, fostered  into  being  by  this  unwise  ordination,  made  alarming 
progress,  and  threatened  to  annihilate  the  property  of  the  higher 
classes — then  to  arrest  and  neutralize  this  mischief,  they  have 
devised  another  ordination,  by  which  to  make  the  pauperism  as 
repulsive  as  possible  to  the  feelings  of  those  who  claim  a  part  in 
its  ministrations.  They  still  keep  up  the  notion  of  their  right  to 
a  maintenance  in  the  hearts  of  the  destitute  ;  but,  by  the  new 
law,  it  is  a  maintenance  on  terms  the  most  hateful  and  humiliating, 
and  that  for  the  purpose  of  scaring  away  as  many  as  possible,  of 
those  applicants,  who,  under  the  old  system,  did  beset  the  parish 
vestries  of  England — the  wretched  victims  of  their  own  indo- 
lence and  dissipation.  We  cannot  imagine  a  state  of  the  law, 
more  fitted  to  engender  the  utmost  acerbity  of  feeling  among 
the  poor  ;  and  indeed  to  alienate  the  general  body  of  the  common 
people  from  the  government  under  which  they  live.  Surely  it 
were  better  that  charity  had  been  left  to  its  own  spontaneous 
operation,  and  so  as  to  insure  the  kindly  play  of  good  will  on  the 
part  of  its  dispensers,  and  gratitude  on  the  part  of  its  recipients  ; 
surely  this  must  give  rise  to  a  better  and  a  blander  community, 
than  when  the  one  party  are  led  to  challenge  a  sustenance  as 
their  privilege  and  their  due  ;  and  the  other  party,  to  defend 
themselves  against  the  encroachment,  labor  to  make  the  privilege 
as  worthless  as  they  may,  by  assimilating  to  the  uttermost  the 
treatment  of  paupers  to  the  treatment  of  criminals.  In  such  a 
condition  of  things,  we  behold  the  materials  of  a  fierce  and  fiery 
fermentation  in  the  hearts  of  the  lower  orders — most  hurtful  to 
their  own  spirits,  and  most  hazardous  to  the  peace  of  society. 
The  first  great  blunder  in  this  legislation,  was  to  ordain  a  law  of 
compulsory  relief  at  all ;  and  when,  to  save  the  ruinous  con- 
sequences of  this  law,  the  relief  was  made  as  degrading  as  pos- 

55 


434  MEMOIR    PRESENTED    TO    THE 

sible,  this  was  attempting  to  correct  one  evil  by  another,  or  to 
bring  about  a  right  result  by  what  mathematicians  would  call  a 
compensation  of  errors.  The  first  may  be  regarded  as  a  disturb- 
ing force  in  one  direction,  and  the  second  as  a  disturbing  force  in 
the  opposite  direction.  Let  both  be  removed,  and  the  business  of 
charity,  when  restored  to  its  own  proper  character,  would  pro- 
ceed in  the  right  and  natural  course,  without  error  and  without 
deviation. 

15.  In  every  way  then,  it  is  better  for  a  nation  to  keep  itself 
clear  of  any  legal  enactment  for  the  relief  of  indigence  ;  and 
more  especially  for  a  government,  not  to  take  out  of  the  hands  of 
its  people,  the  duties  which  they  owe  either  to  themselves  or  to 
their  relatives,  or  to  their  neighbors.  The  great  lesson  to  be 
learned  from  the  example  of  England  is,  that  the  economic  con- 
dition of  the  lower  classes  is  not  improved  but  deteriorated  by  the 
establishment  of  a  compulsory  provision  for  the  destitute — which 
provision  too,  besides  aggravating  the  miseries  of  their  state,  has, 
by  introducing  the  heterogeneous  element  of  an  imagined  right 
into  the  business  of  charity,  turned  what  ought  to  have  been 
altogether  a  matter  of  love  into  a  matter  of  angry  litigation,  and 
greatly  distempered  the  social  condition  of  England,  by  the  heart- 
burnings of  a  perpetual  contest  between  the  higher  and  humbler 
orders  of  the  commonwealth. 

16.  But  it  must  be  admitted,  that,  though  this  be  the  wise  and  even 
benevolent  part  of  a  government,  devising  for  the  welfare  of  its 
subjects,  it  may  not  be  the  policy  by  which  best  to  conciliate  the 
affections  of  the  multitude.  There  is  in  it  a  certain  unmoved 
and  cold-blooded  aspect  of  insensibility  to  distress — the  appear- 
ance of  a  heartless  indifference  to  the  sufferings  and  the  sym- 
pathies of  our  common  nature.  It  has  been  matter  of  boasting 
complacency  to  the  writers  of  England,  when  expatiating  on  the 
perfection  of  their  own  government — that  they  could  speak,  not 
merely  of  the  wisdom  and  the  justice,  but  also  of  the  humanity 
of  their  laws  :  and  the  law  to  which  they  make  their  most  con- 
fident appeal  in  support  of  this  assertion,  is  their  own  law  of 
pauperism.  It  no  doubt  conduces  mightily  to  the  strength  and 
popularity  of  any  government,  when  it  can  stand  forth  in  the 
guise  of  kindness  to  the  most  helpless  of  its  people  ;  but  kindness 
in  the  expression,  or  even  in  the  real  and  honest  purpose,  may 
often  be  cruelty  in  effect.  And  never  was  this  more  strikingly 
exemplified  than  by  England's  famous  law — prompted  we  have 
no  doubt,  by  feelings  of  the  sincerest  benevolence  ;  but  which, 
notwithstanding,  has  enhanced  and  multiplied  tenfold  the  suffer- 
ings that  were  meant  to  be  relieved  by  it.  It  has  become  there- 
fore all  the  more  desirable,  that  the  occasions  should  be  pointed 
out,  on  which  a  government  might  have  the  opportunity  of  com- 
ing forth  ostensibly  as  the  friend,  and  so  at  the  same  time  as  to 
relieve  and  substantially  to  be  the   benefactor  of  the  afflicted — 


KOVAL    INSTITUTE    OF    IT.ANCE.  435 

with  the  same  aspect  of  munificence  and  mercy  to  the  destitute 
upon  its  forehead,  which  made  the  government  of  England  so 
popular  at  the  first  enactment  of  its  Poor-Law  ;  but  without 
those  tremendous  consequences  on  the  character  and  comfort  of 
the  lower  orders,  which  the  experience  of  centuries  has  demon- 
strated to  follow  inevitably  in  its  train. 

17.  It  is  the  part  of  every  well-principled  government  to  dis- 
criminate between  a  seeming  and  a  real  good  to  the  population  ; 
and  never  for  the  sake  of  popularity  to  provide  the  former,  even 
if  it  only  practise  thereby  a  harmless  deceit  on  the  public  imagi- 
nation— and  still  more,  if  under  the  guise  of  an  apparent  blessing 
to  the  poor,  there  lurks  an  influence  at  once  ruinous  both  to  the 
moral  and  economic  prosperity  of  the  lower  orders.  But,  on  the 
other  hand,  should  the  good  to  be  provided  be  free  of  any  such 
alloy,  and  at  the  same  time  be  as  apparent  as  it  is  real,  then,  it  is 
not  only  a  well-principled  but  an  eminently  politic  and  wise  pro- 
ceeding in  a  government,  to  determine  on  the  adoption  ot  it — 
thereby  earning  the  grateful  affections  of  the  people  ;  and,  at  the 
same  time,  scattering  amongst  them  those  solid  and  unquestion- 
able benefits,  which  may  abide  the  test  of  experience,  and  prove 
to  be  of  great  and  actual  service  to  the  interests  of  humanity. 
Now,  a  law  of  relief  for  general  indigence  does  not  realize  both 
these  conditions.  It  may  carry  upon  its  front  an  aspect  of  benig- 
nity to  the  poor  ;  but  fraught  with  innumerable  evils,  will  at 
length  turn  out  to  be  the  mockery  of  an  unreal  blessing,  or  rather 
a  deadly  act  of  hostility  to  their  best  interests  ;  and  all  the  more 
grievous,  that  it  is  in  the  semblance  and  with  the  promises  of  truest 
friendship.  In  defect  of  such  a  law  then,  can  any  other  law  of 
relief  be  specified  in  which  both  the  conditions  will  hold  ? — full  of 
promise  even  at  the  outset,  and  not  behind  in  performance  after- 
ward— a  law  which  not  only  expresses  some  great  purpose  of 
obvious  benevolence,  but  which  executes  that  purpose  to  the  full ; 
and  without  inflicting,  as  the  law  of  pauperism  unquestionably 
does,  deterioration  or  discomfort  on  the  objects  of  its  care. 

18.  A  law  of  relief  for  general  indigence  does  not  fulfil  these 
conditions  ;  but  a  law  of  relief  for  disease  may.  There  is  no 
fund  that  can  possibly  be  raised,  which  will  overtake  the  former. 
But  with  a  small  fraction  of  the  country's  wealth,  the  latter  can 
be  overtaken.  The  distinction  between  these  two  objects — that 
is,  between  a  public  charity  for  the  relief  of  indigence,  and  a  pub- 
lic charity  for  the  relief  of  disease — must  not  have  occurred  to 
the  civilized  governments  of  Europe,  else  it  would  have  been 
more  frequently  acted  on  ;  and  yet  on  the  moment  of  its  being 
stated,  it  is  a  distinction  abundantly  obvious  in  itself,  and  alike 
obvious  in  the  reasons  of  it.  An  ostensible  provision  for  the  re- 
lief of  poverty  creates  more  poverty.  An  ostensible  provision 
for  the  relief  of  disease  does  not  create  more  disease.  The  human 
will  is  enlisted  on  the  side  of  poverty  by  the  provision  which  is 


436  MEMOIR    PRESENTED    TO    THE 

made  for  it.  No  such  provision  will  ever  enlist  the  human  will 
on  the  side  of  disease.  Let  proclamation  be  made  of  a  law  which 
guarantees  every  man  against  starvation — and  this  were  tanta- 
mount to  the  proclaiming  a  jubilee  of  exemption  from  the  toils  of 
industry,  from  the  cares  of  providence,  from  the  duties  of  family 
and  the  sympathies  of  social  life  ;  and  by  the  check  thus  given  to 
all  the  natural  incentives,  whether  of  private  exertion  for  one's 
own  interest  or  of  private  charity  for  the  good  of  others,  there 
might  ensue  a  constantly  increasing  poverty  that  will  ever  keep 
ahead  of  the  increasing  fund,  by  which  it  is  vainly  hoped  to  quell 
the  mischief  that  rises  into  greater  dimensions  with  every  new 
and  larger  attempt  to  overtake  it.  To  think  of  providing  for  the 
wants  of  poverty  by  the  ordination  of  an  adequate  supply,  is 
every  way  as  irrational,  as  to  aim  at  the  extinction  of  a  fire  by 
pouring  oil  upon  it.  It  is  not  so  with  the  attempt  to  provide,  and 
that  even  in  the  most  legal,  and  certain  and  open  manner,  for  the 
wants  of  disease.  And  this  is  the  reason  of  the  difference. 
Though  poverty  in  itself,  be  not  pleasant,  yet  the  path  of  in- 
dolence and  dissipation  which  leads  to  it,  is  abundantly  pleasant 
and  alluring  ;  and  so  thousands  are  prepared  to  rush  upon  this 
descending  path,  on  the  moment  that  the  consequent  poverty  is 
disarmed  of  its  terrors,  by  the  protection  and  the  promises  of 
law.  It  is  thus  that  under  such  a  system  men  are  tempted,  and 
that  in  constantly  increasing  numbers,  to  become  voluntarily 
poor  ;  but  no  system,  no  multiplication  of  funds  or  of  hospitals, 
will  (with  a  few  rare  exceptions,  far  too  rare  to  be  practically  of 
any  weight  in  a  general  argument)  tempt  men  to  become  volun- 
tarily diseased.  No  man  will  break  a  limb  for  the  sake  of  its 
skilful  amputation  in  an  infirmary  ;  or  put  out  his  eyes  for  the 
benefit  of  admittance  to  a  blind  asylum  ;  or  become  wilfully  dumb, 
or  deranged,  or  leprous,  that  he  might  lay  claim  to  any  treat- 
ment or  guardianship,  which  may  have  been  provided  at  the  ex- 
pense of  the  nation  for  these  respective  maladies.  In  the  very 
constitution  of  our  sentient  nature,  in  its  repugnance  to  pain  and 
physical  suffering,  we  have  the  strongest  possible  guarantee 
against  men  wilfully  becoming  patients,' in  order  to  their  admis- 
sion into  an  asylum  for  disease.  We  have  no  such  guarantee,  but 
the  opposite,  against  men  becoming  paupers,  in  order  to  their  ad- 
mission into  an  asylum  for  indigence.  An  indefinite  provision  for 
want  is  ever  sure  to  multiply  its  objects  ;  and  the  evil  recedes  and 
enlarges,  with  every  advance  that  is  made  upon  it.  A  certain 
definite  provision  on  the  other  hand  for  disease  will  be  as  sure  to 
overtake  its  objects.  By  every  new  contribution  we  approach 
the  nearer  to  a  distinct  and  satisfactory  fulfilment ;  nor  does  the 
benevolence  whether  of  the  government  or  of  associated  philan- 
thropists, need  to  stay  its  hand,  under  the  apprehension  that  one 
sufferer  more  will  be  added  to  the  melancholy  catalogue  of  dis- 
ease, because  of  all  the  care  and  tenderness  which  can  possibly 


ROYAL  INSTITUTE  OF  FRANCE.  437 

be  bestowed  upon  it.  This  forms  the  great  distinction  between 
the  two  cases.  The  open  proclamation  of  a  free  entry  into 
asylums  of  disease  would  make  a  clear  abridgment  of  human 
misery,  and  bring  no  new  or  additional  disease  into  existence. 
The  like  proclamation  of  a  free  entry  into  the  asylums  of  indi- 
gence, would  bring  a  world  of  new  poverty  into  existence,  and 
swell  more  every  year  the  amount  of  pauperism.  The  final  out- 
going of  such  a  system  were  at  length  to  absorb  all  the  resources 
of  the  country,  and  beggar  its  whole  population. 

19.  The  antipathy  of  all  our  most  enlightened  political  econ- 
omists to  a  public  charity  for  the  relief  of  indigence,  has  been 
ascribed  to  a  cold  and  unfeeling  hardihood  of  soul.  And  the 
imputation  may  be  true  sometimes  ;  but  is  calumny  in  all  those 
instances,  numerous  it  is  to  be  hoped,  when  the  moving  principle 
of  their  hostility  is  a  real  concern  for  the  substantial  interests  of 
the  lower  orders — the  desire  to  ward  off  a  system  which  they 
honestly  believe  to  have  a  withering  influence  both  on  the  char- 
acter and  comfort  of  the  general  population.  At  all  events,  if  it 
can  be  demonstrated  of  any  public  charity,  that  it  is  altogether 
free  of  this  deleterious  tendency,  and  works  an  unquestionable 
good  to  its  objects,  without  any  alloy  to  discourage  or  repel  the 
attempts  of  the  benevolent  to  support  it — this  holds  out  a  noble 
opportunity  for  the  enemies  of  a  Poor-law,  to  redeem  their  char- 
acter, and  manifest  the  real  spirit  and  design  by  which  they  are 
actuated.  Now,  a  public  charity  for  disease  just  presents  this 
very  opportunity.  The  halt,  and  the  blind,  and  the  maimed,  and 
the  impotent,  and  the  dumb,  and  the  lunatic — stand  before  us, 
with  a  special  mark  impressed  upon  them  by  the  hand  of  Prov- 
idence, and  which  at  once  announces  both  their  necessity  and 
their  claim,  for  the  unqualified  sympathy  of  all  their  fellows.  It 
would  give  rise  to  no  ulterior  demand  on  the  benevolence  of  the 
country,  though  receptacles  were  opened  wide  enough  and  fre- 
quent enough  to  harbor  them  all.  A  •certain  definite  amount  of 
suffering  and  distress  would  be  cleared  away  from  the  territory 
of  human  wretchedness,  without  any  baleful  operation  on  the 
territory  beyond  it.  That  mischief,  which,  like  the  spreading 
leprosy,  is  ever  sure  to  follow  a  public  and  certain  provision  for 
indigence,  is,  on  an  obvious  principle,  never  to  be  apprehended 
from  a  provision  however  public  and  however  certain  for  the  cure 
or  alleviation  of  disease.  If  it  was  under  the  burden  of  such  an 
apprehension,  that  these  philanthropists  stood  aloof,  and  refused 
their  countenance  and  their  aid  to  the  one  species  of  charity — let 
them  now,  when  relieved  from  the  burden,  come  forth  both  with 
their  testimony  and  their  wealth  in  support  of  the  other  species 
of  charity.  If  in  the  first  place  they  kept  feeling  at  abeyance, 
because  philosophy  forbade  the  indulgence  of  it — let  them  in  the 
second  place,  when  there  'is  no  cold  obstruction  in  the  way,  de- 
monstrate the  power  and  promptitude  of  their  humanity,  by  a 


438  MEMOIR    PRESENTED    TO    THE 

ready  forthgoing  of  their  sympathies,  now  emancipated  from  all 
restraint,  on  those  involuntary  distresses  which  nature  and  neces- 
sity have  imposed.  By  their  opposition  to  the  institutes  of  pauper- 
ism, they  have  proved  themselves  to  be  before  others  in  the  sound- 
ness of  their  understandings — let  them  by  their  large  and  willing 
support  for  the  institutes  of  disease,  prove  that  they  are  not  be- 
hind others  in  the  sensibilities  of  the  heart.  If  at  the  dictate  of 
reason  they  withheld  their  liberalities  from  the  one  cause — when 
the  other  presents  itself,  and  reason  not  only  withdraws  its  dis- 
allowance but  urges  its  unexceptionable  claims,  then  let  them 
show  that  they  have  an  eye  for  pity  and  a  hand  open  as  day  for 
melting  charity. 

20.  That  this  lesson  has  yet  to  be  learnt  by  the  great  majority 
of  our  philanthropists,  is  obvious  from  the  review  of  those  public 
charities,  which  have  been  founded  by  the  munificence  of  in- 
dividuals— whether  in  the  form  of  bequests  or  of  benevolent 
associations.  It  is  not  many  years  ago,  since  a  Royal  Commis- 
sion was  nppointed  in  Britain,  to  inquire  into  the  public  charities 
of  England  and  Wales  ;  and  it  is  striking  to  observe  the  large 
number  of  those  which  have  the  relief  of  indigence  for  their 
object,  and  the  very  small  number  which  are  instituted  for  the 
treatment  of  disease.  In  the  account  now  before  us  of  these 
charities  abridged  from  the  Commissioners'  Reports,  we  reckoned 
from  the  commencement  of  their  enumeration  no  less  than  a 
hundred  and  thirtv-six  various  charities  of  London  and  Bristol, 
of  which  the  great  majority  were  for  indigence  alone  ;  and  a  few 
for  education,  before  we  arrived  at  one  for  disease  being  a  charity 
for  blind  persons.  The  erection  of  alms-houses,  the  distribution 
of  bread,  the  supply  of  coals,  loans  or  gifts  of  money  to  the  indi- 
gent ;  and  a  countless  variety  of  other  distinctions,  but  all  pointing 
to  the  general  object  of  the  relief  of  poverty — these  outnumber 
the  institutions  for  education  at  least  in  the  proportion  of  six  to 
one,  and  the  institutions  for  disease  in  the  proportion  of  fifty  to 
one.  We  feel  quite  assured,  whether  we  take  a  general  survey 
of  the  whole  country  or  limit  our  attention  to  one  of  its  large 
towns,  that,  in  the  testamentary  dispositions  of  the  benevolent, 
there  is  a  very  great  and  general  misdirection  of  wealth  to  the 
wrong  object.  A  known  and  certain  provision  held  out  to  indi- 
gence, will  create  the  indigence — a  provision,  however  certain  or 
however  ample  made,  for  disease,  will  never  create  or  multiply 
the  disease.  And  yet,  in  spite  of  this  obvious  consideration,  far 
the  greatest  proportion  of  the  legacies  which  are  left  for  benev- 
olent purposes,  are  left  for  the  relief  of  poverty  which  can  never 
be  overtaken  ;  and  so  small  a  proportion  left  for  disease  which 
may  be  overtaken,  as  to  come  greatly  short  of  the  necessity. 
Within  these  few  years,  there  have  been  two  magnificent  sums 
bequeathed  in  charity  to  the  city  of  Edinburgh  ;  and  this  will 
add  two  asylums  to  a  number  formerly  in  excess — because  asy- 


ROYAL    INSTITUTE    OF    FRANCE.  439 

lums  not  for  any  specific  maladies  but  for  general  want.  Mean- 
while the  Infirmary  is  inadequately  supported.  The  Deaf  and 
Dumb  Asylum  is  limited,  with  a  very  few  exceptions,  to  those 
whose  relatives  can  afford  to  pay  for  their  maintenance.  The 
Blind  Asylum  is  on  a  very  limited  scale,  and  in  great  difficulties ; 
and  there  is  no  institution  at  all  in  the  capital  of  Scotland,  for  the 
gratuitous  admission  of  lunatics.  By  a  more  judicious  destination 
of  their  wealth  on  the  part  of  those  two  individuals,  a  real  and  un- 
questionable blessing  would  have  been  conferred  on  society — fami- 
lies relieved  of  their  blind,  or  fatuous,  or  other  diseased  members  ; 
and  without  any  substitution  of  families  alike  helpless  and  unfortu- 
nate in  their  places.  But  the  reverse  of  this  takes  place  with  the 
asylums  for  indigence.  Hundreds  of  poor  may  be  admitted 
within  their  thresholds ;  but  these  are  sure  to  be  replaced  by  an 
equal,  we  think  by  a  greater  number,  and  the  general  community 
labors  under  as  great  a  burden  of  want  and  wretchedness  as 
before. 

21.  It  is  instructive  to  observe  the  relative  estimation  in  which 
these  'two  objects  are  held  by  the  charitable — we  mean  the  relief 
of  poverty,  and  the  relief  of  disease.  We  thought  it  a  good  way 
of  settling  this  question,  to  take  the  volume  which  presented  an 
account  of  all  the  public  charities  that  had  been  found  in  a  certain 
number  of  the  towns  and  parishes  in  England,  abridged  from  the 
Reports  of  the  Royal  Commissioners  on  Charitable  Foundations. 
These  charities,  in  the  great  bulk  of  them  originated  in  the  spon- 
taneous benevolence  of  individuals  who  very  generally  conveyed, 
not  by  gifts  while  they  were  living,  but  by  bequests  which  took 
effect  after  their  death,  the  whole  or  part  of  their  wealth  to  cer- 
tain philanthropic  purposes.  It  is  marvellous  to  contemplate  the 
preference  which  these  testators  had  for  the  relief  of  poverty, 
rather  than  for  the  relief  of  disease.  The  distinction  which  we 
have  so  much  insisted  on  must  not  have  been  present  to  their 
minds.  They  must  not  have  adverted  to  the  utter  failure  of  every 
attempt  by  public  charity  to  overtake  the  indigence  of  the  land, 
or  even  to  diminish  the  amount  of  it — seeing  that  the  relieving 
process,  in  virtue  of  which  a  certain  number  were  fed  and 
clothed,  was  followed  up  and  accompanied  by  a  creative  process, 
in  virtue  of  which  at  least  an  equal,  we  think  a  greater  amount 
of  poverty,  or  of  hunger  and  nakedness,  was  created  in  general 
society.  And  neither  along  with  this  must  they  have  adverted  to 
the  obvious  impossibility  of  a  similar  effect  in  the  treatment  of 
disease — seeing  that  the  relieving  process  in  this  department  of 
charity  never  could  be  so  followed  up  by  a  creative  process,  in 
virtue  of  which  any  more  disease  could  be  called  into  existence. 
We  have  reckoned  the  number  of  such  destinations  of  which  an 
account  is  given  in  the  work  now  referred  to — comprehending 
the  Charities  of  London,  along  with  those  of  ten  other  great 
towns,  besides  a  number  of  parishes  in  England ;  and  we  find, 


440  MEMOIR    PRESENTED    TO    THE 

that,  while  there  are  only  eleven  distinct  allotments  of  land  or 
money  for  the  relief  of  disease  in  all  these  places,  there  are  among 
the  same  places  no  less  than  712  for  the  relief  of  indigence.  It 
must  also  he  mentioned  that  the  number  of  Educational  Charities 
amounts  to  202  ;  but  perhaps  it  will  exhibit  a  fairer  proportion  of 
the  two,  if  we  look  separately  to  each  of  the  distinct  localities  ; 
and,  accordingly,  the  following  are  a  few  examples  out  of  the 
many.  In  the  borough  of  Stafford,  wre  have  an  account  of  19 
charitable  bequests  for  the  indigent,  seven  for  education,  and  none 
for  disease.  For  the  town  of  Northampton,  we  have  an  account 
of  31  charitable  funds  for  indigence,  and  9  for  education,  and  none 
for  disease.  In  the  city  of  Gloucester,  we  have  an  account  of  21 
instituted  funds  for  charity,  6  for  education,  and  none  for  disease. 
In  the  town  of  Leeds,  we  have  an  account  of  13  public  benefac- 
tions for  the  poor,  and  8  for  education.  In  the  city  of  York,  we 
recognize  48  benefactions  for  poverty,  and  23  for  education.  In 
the  large  and  populous  town  of  Manchester,  we  mark  31  distinct 
heads  of  charity  for  the  poor,  and  19  for  education.  It  should  be 
observed,  however,  that  we  count  every  object  to  be  education, 
which  goes  any  way  to  the  instruction  of  the  people,  whether 
it  be  in  religious  doctrine  or  in  ordinary  scholarship — including 
therefore  the  sums  allocated  for  the  repairs  of  churches,  and  the 
preaching  of  sermons,  as  well  as  for  the  expenses  of  week-day 
seminaries.  In  the  laborious  enumeration  that  we  drew  out,  we 
generally  rated  all  the  individual  bequests  as  one,  which  were 
made  over  to  one  and  the  same  institution.  Of  the  11  cases  of 
provision  for  disease  we  state  as  specimens  the  conveyance  by 
Robert  Hudson,  of  eight  acres  on  trust,  to  apply  the  rents  in  pro- 
viding medicine  and  medical  aid  for  the  poor  of  the  parish  of 
Selby  ;  and  the  munificent  bequest  of  Mr.  Thomas  Henslow  of 
£20,000  for  a  blind  asylum  at  Manchester.  It  was  altogether  in 
keeping  with  this,  that  the  same  individual  should  bequeath  £1,000 
for  the  Manchester  Infirmary,  and  £1,000  for  a  Lunatic  Hospital. 
22.  We  are  aware  that  we  have  taken  account  of  but  a  very 
small  propprtion  of  the  charities  in  England,  and  have  not  even 
completed  the  list  of  the  charities  in  all  the  places  which  we  have 
now  specified.  We  were  necessarily  limited  to  the  examination 
of  such  charities  as  the  royal  commissioners  were  empowered  to 
inquire  into ;  but  they  were  not  excluded  from  taking  cognizance 
of  the  institutions  for  disease,  any  more  than  of  the  institutions 
either  for  want  or  for  learning  ;  and  the  proportions  we  have  now 
been  enabled  to  exhibit,  do,  it  is  certain,  evince  most  strikingly, 
a  preference  on  the  part  of  the  benevolent  founders  for  those 
charitable  institutions,  which  have  for  their  object  the  relief  of 
that  indigence  into  which  men  might  voluntarily  descend,  and  to 
which  descent  these  bequests  hold  out  a  resistless  temptation.  It 
is  melancholy  to  think,  that,  by  a  small  fraction  of  the  wealth 
thus  thrown  away,  institutions  for  disease  might  have  been  pro- 


ROYAL  INSTITUTE  OF  FRANCE.  441 

vided  all  over  the  land,  and  so  as  to  leave  no  involuntary  sufferer 
under  the  inflictions  of  nature  and  necessity,  in  want  of  any  likely 
appliance,  by  which  to  cure  or  to  alleviate  his  distress. 

23.  It  is  not  for  us  to  enter  into  a  full  detail  on  the  public 
charities  of  France.  We  rejoice  to  observe  in  the  city  of  Paris 
so  many  institutions  for  disease,  while  the  sums  spent  on  the  public 
relief  of  indigence,  derived  chiefly  from  the  produce  of  public 
shows  and  public  amusements,  form  but  an  insignificant  fraction 
of  what  is  expended  on  the  same  object  in  London.  We,  at  the 
same  time,  were  astonished  at  the  immense  proportion  which  the 
number  who  received  charity  at  their  own  houses,  bore  to  the 
population  of  the  city — having  in  1835  amounted  to  one  in  12.32 
of  the  whole  community.  It  is  our  confident  opinion,  yet  we 
desire  to  express  it  with  all  humility  and  respect,  that  the  sure 
effect  of  such  distributions  is  to  augment  the  discomfort  and  moral 
deterioration  of  the  lower  classes.  The  sum  given  to  each  in- 
dividual is  small;  but  it  should  ever  be  recollected,  that  the  mis- 
chief is  not  proportionally  small.  That  relaxation  of  industrious 
and  providential  habits,  and  that  relaxation  also  of  the  family  and 
relative  obligations,  which  are  the  sure  consequences  of  pauper- 
ism, are  not  to  be  measured  by  the  sum  received,  but  by  the  sum 
expected ;  and  each,  in  virtue  of  the  natural  confidence  which 
every  man  has  in  his  own  good  fortune,  may  look  for  a  larger 
share  of  the  public  beneficence,  than  he  shall  ever  succeed  in 
realizing.  It  is  thus,  we  apprehend,  that  every  known  charity 
for  the  relief  of  indigence  multiplies  its  objects ;  and  it  is  woful 
to  think,  that,  while  the  amount  of  suffering  is  increased  thereby, 
it  is  in  virtue  of  a  process  which  carries  along  with  it  the  tenfold 
greater  evil  of  an  increase  of  depravity.  The  decay  of  character 
and  the  decay  of  comfort  keep  pace  with  each  other — for  who 
does  not  acknowledge,  that,  if  the  pride  of  honest  independence, 
an  affection  for  one's  own  kindred,  and  a  sympathy  for  those  of 
one's  own  neighborhood  are  all  enfeebled  under  a  system  of 
pauperism — that  system  must  have  a  withering  influence,  both  on 
the  worth  and  the  well-being  of  society?  The  evil  we  imagine 
to  be  greatly  aggravated  by  those  places  of  reception  (Hospices) 
— where  applicants,  with  no  other  qualification  than  poverty,  find 
a  harbor  and  a  maintenance  provided  for  them.  If  the  out-door 
relief  be  of  small  account — beyond  this  there  is  the  ulterior  pros- 
pect of  an  in-door  admittance,  to  all  the  necessaries  at  least,  if 
not  the  comforts  of  existence.  The  magical  influence  of  hope 
will  extend  to  a  far  greater  multitude  than  to  those  actual  receiv- 
ers of  charity,  who  are  so  far  fortunate  as  to  have  their  hopes  at 
least  in  part  realized.  The  indolence,  the  improvidence,  the  dis- 
sipation, the  disregard  to  every  claim  of  family  or  neighbor — 
these  are  the  fertile  causes  of  want,  or  of  want  unrelieved.  And 
these  are  stimulated  throughout  the  mass  of  the  community  by  the 
promises  of  pauperism,  to  a  far  greater  extent  than  the  promises 

5G 


442  MEMOIR    PRESENTED    TO    THE 

are  ever  realized.  We  think,  it  may  with  all  safety  be  affirmed, 
that  neither  Paris  nor  any  town  in  Europe  has  at  this  moment  a 
less,  we  think  it  has  a  much  greater  amount  of  unrelieved  poverty, 
because  of  the  public  charities  for  general  indigence  which  have 
been  established  in  the  midst  of  them — beguiling  the  people  from 
a  dependence  on  themselves;  and  from  the  duties  of  family  and 
social  life,  which  they  owe  to  the  helpless  who  are  around  them. 

24.  Yet  however  mischievous  in  their  operation  these  public 
institutions  for  the  relief  of  indigence  may  be,  we  do  not  plead 
for  the  immediate  abolition  of  them.  We  think  that  even  justice 
requires  the  continuance  of  their  wonted  allowances,  to  all  whom 
the  very  existence  of  these  proclaimed  charities  has  allured  from 
the  habits  of  industry  and  self-dependence.  Let  them  be  seen 
therefore  to  their  graves  in  the  sufficiency  of  their  present  allow- 
ances, unless  it  be  found  on  a  scrutiny  of  their  cases  that  they  may 
be  committed  back  again  to  their  own  resources.  It  is  only  by  a 
gradual  process  that  we  desire  the  extinction  of  any  of  those  in- 
stitutions against  which  we  have  contended.  We  would  steadily 
refuse  the  admission  of  any  new  applicants,  while  we  would 
spare  the  old  recipients  ;  and  would  rather  wait  to  be  delivered 
from  the  burden  of  aiding  them  by  the  operation  of  death,  than 
incur  the  violence  of  a  movement  per  saltum,  by  the  instant  dis- 
missal, either  of  the  actual  inmates  from  their  asylums,  or  of  the 
actual  out-door  pensioners  from  the  periodical  grants  which  they 
have  been  in  the  habit  of  receiving.  We  would  not  thus  violate 
the  law  of  continuity  ;  but  suffer  every  institute  for  the  relief  of 
poverty  gradually  to  die  a  natural  death,  by  the  successive  deaths 
of  the  individuals  who  now  depend  upon  them.  Only  we  would 
take  on  no  new  individuals  ;  and  feel  assured,  that,  if  these  either 
were  taught  to  draw  upon  their  own  resources,  or  were  left  to  the 
sympathies  whether  of  neighborhood  or  of  relationship,  we  should 
find,  as  the  result  of  this  change  of  system — that  the  community 
would  become  economically  more  comfortable,  and  morally  more 
virtuous  than  before. 

25.  It  were  well  that  the  governments,  both  of  states  and  of 
cities,  were  more  alive  to  the  distinction  which  we  have  en- 
deavored to  unfold,  between  the  one  species  of  charity  and  the 
other.  The  argument  against  a  public  charity  for  indigence, 
applies  so  little  to  the  public  charities  for  disease — that  practically, 
while  the  former  ought  to  be  abolished,  the  latter,  with  a  proper 
degree  of  regulation  and  watchfulness,  might  be  encouraged  to 
the  uttermost.  If  a  government  endangered  somewhat  its  popu- 
larity, by  suffering  the  one  class  of  institutions  to  fall  into  desue- 
tude— this,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  would  be  greatly  more  than  compen- 
sated, by  the  patent  character  of  beneficence  and  mercy,  which 
stood  on  their  ordinance  of  an  instant  provision  for  all  those 
maladies  that  come  under  the  best  and  most  effectual  treatment 
in  a  public  asylum.     A  door  might  be  opened,  not  only  with 


ROYAL    INSTITUTE    OF    FRANCE.  443 

safety,  but  with  an  unalloyed  blessing  to  society — wide  enough 
for  the  reception  of  all  the  maimed,  and  all  the  impotent,  and  all 
the  bereft  of  their  faculties,  whether  of  sight,  or  reason,  or  speech 
or  hearing.  Infirmaries  and  fever-hospitals  ;  and  even  dispen- 
saries, though  these  last  seem  the  most  difficult  to  be  guarded 
from  abuse,  might  be  multiplied  to  the  extent  of  the  necessity  if 
not  of  the  demand  for  them.  We  are  aware  of  the  complaints 
which  have  been  made,  and  nowhere  more  than  in  Paris,  of  the 
undue  advantage  that  even  patients  as  well  as  paupers  might  take 
of  the  provision  that  is  made  for  them.  But  surely  disease  ad- 
mits of  being  more  distinctly  and  decisively  tested  than  poverty. 
Neither  is  the  one  so  multiplied  by  institutions  raised  in  its  behalf, 
as  the  other  is.  No  man  can  counterfeit  the  loss  of  a  limb,  or 
even  the  loss  of  his  sight,  and  reason,  and  hearing,  so  as  long  to 
impose  on  the  guardians  of  an  asylum  into  which  he  may  have 
found  his  way.  But  any  man  can  counterfeit  poverty  ;  or,  what 
is  still  more  decisive,  he  not  only  can  but  he  will  create  poverty 
— when  the  temptation  of  a  public  and  a  promised  relief  are  held 
out  to  a  little  more  indolence,  or  a  little  more  dissipation.  If  there 
have  been  mutilations  practised,  or  if  there  have  been  a  voluntary 
contraction  of  real  diseases,  in  order  to  qualify  for  the  sustenance 
and  the  shelter  held  forth  in  a  place  of  cure — these,  it  is  demon- 
strable, compose  but  an  insignificant  fraction,  compared  with  that 
host  of  unworthy  applicants,  who  crowd  the  avenue  which  leads 
to  a  place  of  supply  for  the  wants  of  indigence.  The  few  and 
incidental  evils  which  might  at  times  be  realized  even  in  an  infir- 
mary (JiopitaJ),  do  not  obscure  the  line  of  demarcation  between 
such  an  institution  and  a  poor's  house  (hospice) — the  evils  of  which 
are  sure  to  be  multiplied  tenfold,  with  every  increase  of  its  funds 
and  its  allowances.  The  fictitious  disease  which  knocks  at  the 
door  of  an  asylum,  bears  a  very  small  proportion  to  the  fictitious 
poverty.  But  the  great  distinction  between  the  two  charities  lies 
in  this — that  the  real  disease  (excepting  that  which  is  contracted 
by  vicious  indulgence)  brought  into  existence  by  the  provision 
made  for  it,  bears  the  proportion  of  an  infinitesimal  to  the  real 
poverty,  which  comes  into  being  under  the  malignant  influence 
of  a  public  charity — by  the  relaxation  of  industrious  and  eco- 
nomical habits,  as  well  as  of  all  those  ties  that  bind  the  members 
whether  of  a  household  or  of  a  neighborhood  into  a  common 
sympathy  with  each  other. 

26.  And  there  is  one  class  of  sufferers  about  whom  there  can 
be  no  mistake,  and  who  possess  an  indisputable  and  pre-eminent 
claim  upon  human  sympathy.  We  mean  those — on  whom  all  the 
resources  of  the  medical  art  have  been  expended  in  vain  ;  and 
who,  after  a  season  of  full  probation  in  an  hospital  of  disease,  are 
at  length  pronounced  to  be  beyond  hope  and  beyond  recovery. 
The  great  desideratum  is  an  asylum,  or  place  of  refuge  for  these 
poor  incurables — who,  instead  of  being  devolved  a  heavy  and 


444  MEMOIR    PRESENTED    TO    THE 

hopeless  burden  on  the  families  to  which  they  belong,  should  at 
least  have  it  in  their  power  to  enter  some  such  house  of  mercy- 
open  to  receive  them — where  they  might  meet  with  every  pos- 
sible alleviation  which  human  skill  can  devise,  or  human  kindness 
can  administer.  For  their  sakes  it  were  well,  if  even  the  title  of 
the  institution  were  softened  from  a  House  for  Incurables  to  a 
House  for  Convalescents — through  which  all  who  leave  the  infir- 
mary may  pass  on  their  transition  to  perfect  health  and  strength, 
after  the  medical  treatment  is  over ;  and  only  those  be  detained 
whom  the  hand  of  nature  has  stricken  with  irrecoverable  disease, 
and  whom  the  God  of  nature  has  thus  signalized  and  marked  out 
for  the  unqualified  sympathy  of  all  their  fellows. 

27.  The  whole  of  this  argument  receives  a  beautiful  illustration, 
or  I  would  even  say,  is  strengthened  and  confirmed,  by  the  ex- 
ample of  our  Saviour.  He  could  have  brought,  nay,  he  actually 
on  two  occasions  did  bring  down,  food  by  miracle,  to  appease  the 
hunger  of  a  starving  multitude  :  but  refused  to  do  so  a  third  time, 
when,  in  the  sordid  expectation  of  a  meal,  they  ran  after  him  for 
the  purpose  of  being  again  regaled  by  his  bounty.  *  Verily  you 
have  come  not  to  see  the  miracle  but  to  eat  of  the  loaves  and  be 
filled."  What  a  contrast  between  this  reserve  in  the  supply  of 
food,  and  the  unexcepted  freeness  of  his  ministrations  in  the  sup- 
ply of  health,  wrhich  he  brought  down  by  miracle  on  every  patient 
who  applied  to  him  for  a  cure.  There  is  no  recorded  example 
of  his  ever  having  bid  away  from  him  the  maimed,  or  the  impo- 
tent, or  the  palsied,  or  the  lunatic,  or  the  vexed  with  sundry  and 
sore  diseases  ;  but  in  every  case  of  which  we  read,  "  He  looked 
to  them  and  had  compassion  on  them,  and  healed  them  all."  I 
have  often  thought  of  this  history  as  a  guide  and  an  example  to 
us,  in  our  public  charities.  For  in  the  notoriety  which  he  attained, 
any  charity  of  his  was  in  fact  a  public  charity ;  and  it  is  obvious, 
that,  had  he  brought  down  food  indefinitely  by  miracle,  it  would 
have  discharged  the  people  from  all  their  habits  of  industry  and 
foresight,  and  disorganized  the  whole  of  Judea,  by  trooping 
multitudes  running  after  this  great  prophet  for  the  purpose  of 
being  fed  by  him.  But  no  such  consequence  was  to  be  appre- 
hended when,  instead  of  a  miraculous  almoner  to  all  his  country- 
men, He  became  a  miraculous  Physician  to  those  limited  and 
comparatively  few  who  sought  the  relief  of  their  malady  at  His 
hand ;  and,  accordingly,  when,  in  the  march  of  his  wise  and 
effective  beneficence  through  the  land  of  Judea,  the  dumb,  and 
the  blind,  and  the  afflicted  with  various  infirmities,  came  forth  of 
the  surrounding  villages — he  laid  no  prohibition  on  these  children 
of  blameless  and  helpless  disease.  We  have  much  to  learn  from 
this  proceeding  of  our  Saviour's  ;  but,  whatever  discouragements 
we  may  draw  from  his  example  in  the  erection  of  an  asylum  for 
indigence,  we  can  draw  none  against  the  erection  of  an  asylum 
for  disease.     And  while  the  boding  apprehension  both  of  moral 


ROYAL    INSTITUTE    OF    FRANCE.  445 

and  physical  disaster  hangs  over  the  one  institution — do  we  infer 
of  the  other  that  its  door  may  be  thrown  open,  and  all  its  accom- 
modations be  widened  and  multiplied,  till  every  imploring  patient 
be  taken  in,  and  a  harbor  of  sufficient  amplitude  be  provided  for 
all  those  sufferings  which  an  uncontrollable  necessity  has  laid 
upon  the  species. 


AN   HISTORICAL  AND   CRITICAL   VIEW 

OF   THE 

SPECULATIVE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  EUROPE 

IN  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY. 
BY  J.  D.  MORELL,  A.M. 

[From  the  North  British,  Review  for  February.    London:  1847.] 


The  Author  of  this  important  work  began  his  studies  on  the 
Mental  Philosophy  in  London ;  proceeded  thence  to  Glasgow ; 
after  an  attendance  on  the  classes  there,  went  to  Germany,  where 
he  heard  lectures,  and  read  the  works  of  its  great  masters ;  last 
of  all,  passed  into  France  and  became  conversant  with  the  writ- 
ings of  Cousin,  and  others  of  the  Eclectic  School  now  forming  in 
Paris.  Such  a  thorough  work  of  preparation  bids  well  for  great 
results,  a  first  specimen  of  which  we  have  in  the  volumes  before 
us  ;  and  truly,  the  force  and  clearness  wherewith  they  are  writ- 
ten, and  this  by  one  who  has  travelled  so  extensively  over  his  own 
select  and  favorite  department  in  the  territory  of  human  knowl- 
edge, fully  warrants  the  expectation  of  still  greater  and  more  im- 
portant services  at  his  hand. 

And  it  is  long  since  any  work  has  made  its  appearance  before 
a  public  in  a  state  of  greater  expectancy  and  readiness  for  its 
lessons.  The  subject  of  it  is  altogether  adapted  to  the  necessity 
of  our  times.  We  can  imagine  no  two  things  more  alien  from 
each  other  than  is  the  speculative  philosophy  of  Britain  from  that 
of  Germany ;  and,  for  the  sake  of  that  truth  which  is  one  and  uni- 
versal, a  common  understanding,  an  adjustment  between  them,  is 
imperiously  called  for.  The  mental  habitudes  of  the  two  coun- 
tries are  wide  as  the  poles  asunder  ;  and  did  this  divergency  take 
effect  only  in  some  region  far  aloft,  and  where  it  could  have  no 
possible  bearing  upon  human  interests  or  human  affairs,  we  might 
simply  gaze  upon  it  as  a  matter  of  philosophic  curiosity.  But 
touching,  as  it  does,  on  the  nearest  and  most  affecting  of  all  our 
concerns,  the  prospect  of  a  collision  now  at  hand  between  the  two 
philosophies  in  question  cannot  but  awaken  a  certain  sense  of 


MORELLS    MODERN    PHILOSOPHY.  447 

fearfulness  in  the  minds  of  those  who  both  admit  the  supreme  ho- 
mage that  is  due  to  truth,  and  at  the  same  time  the  homage  that 
is  due  to  religion ;  and,  accordingly,  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that 
such  a  tearfulness  is  now  beginning  to  be  felt.  For  we  may  now 
lay  our  account  with  a  far  more  copious  influx  than  heretofore  of 
the  German  metaphysics  into  this  country.  Not  only  is  the  lan- 
guage more  generally  studied  among  the  upper  classes  of  British 
society ;  but  there  is  in  progress  at  this  moment,  a  regular  series 
of  translations,  and  that,  too,  of  those  authors  who  have  most  sig- 
nalized themselves  by  a  certain  daring  recklessness  of  speculation, 
which,  while  it  will  repel  the  confidence  of  many,  might  captivate 
and  engage  many  more  by  the  spectacle,  at  all  times  interesting, 
of  great  mental  intrepidity  and  mental  power.  The  very  strange- 
ness and  peculiarity,  both  of  diction  and  thought,  will  set  the 
curiosity  of  numbers  upon  edge  ;  and,  besides,  with  such  heralds 
as  Coleridge  and  Carlyle,  whose  writings  have  so  powerful  a  hold 
on  our  literary  public,  to  open  the  way  for  them,  we  may  surely 
reckon  on  their  welcome  entertainment  by  thousands  of  the  read- 
ers in  our  land.  Now,  all  this  is  not  only  the  anticipation,  but  the 
dread  of  many  who  feel  as  if  the  stability  of  our  creeds  were  fast 
giving  way  ;  or  as  if  all  our  creeds,  and  institutions,  and  existing 
usages,  were  now  on  the  eve  of  some  frightful  overthrow.  Nor 
do  we  hold  these  terrors  to  be  altogether  spectral  and  imaginary. 
But  it  is  well  to  know  the  dimensions  of  the  spectre  ;  for,  if  seen 
in  its  own  definite  magnitudes  and  outlines,  it  might  cease  to  be  so 
formidable.  A  bugbear  is  always  more  terrific  than  the  nucleus 
or  the  naked  reality  from  which  it  hath  expanded ;  and,  at  all 
events,  it  is  right  to  be  told  what  the  precise  force  and  armor  is 
of  the  enemy  we  might  be  called  to  encounter.  This  service, 
and  a  most  important  one  it  is,  has  been  ably  executed  by  the 
author  of  the  work  under  review.  It  is  entitled,  "  An  Historical 
and  Critical  Review  of  the  Speculative  Philosophy  of  Europe  in 
the  Nineteenth  Century.'*  As  regards  the  historical  part,  we  feel 
truly  thankful  for  his  informations  ;  and  as  to  the  critical,  in 
which,  over  and  above  his  informations,  we  have  also  his  judg- 
ments, we  are  thankful  for  this  part  too  of  his  work,  but  will  take 
leave  to  share  it  with  him. 

We  confess,  that  our  chief  earnestness  is  to  find,  amid  all  these 
conflicting  systems  and  speculations,  that  our  theology  is  safe ; 
nor  do  we  altogether  understand  the  obviously  sensitive  aversion 
of  our  author  to  the  idea  of  coming  into  collision,  with  it.  We 
fully  acquit  him  of  all  that  mock  homage  rendered  by  Hume  and 
other  infidels  to  Christianity — as  if  its  questions  were  unfit  for  the 
tribunal  of  reason,  and  should  ever  be  carried  thence  to  the  only 
competent  and  higher  tribunal  of  faith.  We  rejoice  to  observe 
of  Mr.  Morell,  that  he  is  altogether  free  of  such  contemptuousness  ; 
and  that,  when  he  does  speak  of  Religion,  it  is  in  terms  of  uni- 
form respect  for  it,  even  in  its  most  serious  and  evangelistic  form. 


448  morell's  modern  philosophy. 

But  if  so,  what  then  is  he  afraid  of?  Most  assuredly  Religion  is 
worthy  of  his  respect  only  in  so  far  as  it  is  true  ;  and  if  true,  why 
does  he  shrink  back  from  it,  as  if  it  were  a  heterogeneous  element, 
and  not  to  be  admitted  into  the  field  of  his  argument — even 
although  the  philosophy  of  which  he  is  the  historian  makes  free 
with  the  very  essence  and  first  elements  of  religion,  and,  if  left  all 
to  its  own  way,  would  end  in  sweeping  it  from  the  face  of  the 
earth  ?  And,  besides,  must  not  truth  in  every  one  department  be 
in  fullest  harmony  with  truth  in  every  other  ?  and  where,  we 
ask, — we  shall  not  say  the  impiety, — but  where  is  the  philosophy 
of  refusing  evidence,  if  it  only  be  logical  and  legitimate  evidence, 
from  whatever  quarter  of  human  contemplation  it  may  come  ? 
Most  assuredly  we  shall  not  denounce  any  system  or  any  specu- 
lation that  is  here  recorded,  however  extravagant  or  profane  it 
may  chance  to  be — we  shall  not  denounce  it  as  impious  ;  though 
surely  we  are  at  liberty  to  charge  it  as  unphilosophical,  yet  only  on 
such  evidence  and  for  such  reasons  as  might  rightfully  challenge 
the  belief  of  soundly  philosophic  men.  We  desire  to  wear  no 
other  shield  for  our  defensive,  and  to  wield  no  other  armor  for 
our  offensive  warfare,  in  fighting  the  battles  of  the  faith. 

And,  now  that  we  have  done  with  these  preliminaries,  our  first, 
and,  as  yet,  very  general  remark,  is,  that  our  author  seems  to  us 
in  the  natural  spirit  of  one  who  magnifies  his  office,  somewhat  to 
have  misstated  its  place  among  the  sciences,  and  greatly  to  have 
exaggerated  the  pretensions  and  powers  of  the  mental  philosophy. 
Nor  is  he  at  all  singular  in  this.  Leibnitz,  in  one  of  his  Logical 
and  Metaphysical  Tractates,  entitled,  "  Reflections  on  Locke's 
Essay  of  the  Human  Understanding,"  tells  us,  that  "  of  all  inqui- 
ries, this  is  the  most  important,  for  that  it  is  the  key  to  every 
other.  Dr.  Brown,  in  his  Second  Lecture,  entitled,  "Relation 
of  the  Philosophy  of  the  Mind  to  the  Sciences  in  General,"  offers 
a  number  of  like  testimonials,  which  would  need  to  be  greatly 
qualified.  He  tells  us  "  how  essential  a  right  view  of  the  science 
of  mind  is  to  every  other  science,  even  to  those  sciences  which 
superficial  thinkers  might  conceive  to  have  no  connection  with  it." 
He  further  speaks  of"  a  close  acquaintance  with  the  nature  of  that 
intellectual  medium  through  which  alone  the  phenomena  of  matter 
become  visible  to  us,  and  of  those  intellectual  instruments  by 
which  the  objects  of  every  science,  and  of  every  science  alike, 
are  measured,  and  divided,  and  arranged."  And  then  he  says  of 
mind,  that  "  it  is  an  agent  operating  in  the  production  of  new  re- 
sults, and  employing  for  this  purpose  the  known  laws  of  thought, 
in  the  same  manner  as,  on  other  occasions,  it  employs  the  known 
laws  of  matter."  And,  lastly,  without  multiplying  our  quotations 
from  him  any  further,  he  concludes,  that  "  to  the  philosophy  of 
mind,  then,  every  speculation,  in  every  science,  may  be  said  to 
have  relation  as  to  a  common  centre."  Even  the  calmly  sedate 
and  sober-minded  Dr.  Reid  tells,  in  his  own  person,  "  that  a  dis- 


morell's  modern  philosophy.  449 

tinct  knowledge  of  the  powers  of  the  mind  would  undoubtedly 
give  great  light  to  many  other  branches  of  science ;"  and 
quotes  with  approbation  from  Mr.  Hume  the  following  sentence, 
that  "  all  the  sciences  have  a  relation  to  human  nature  ;  and,  how- 
ever wide  any  of  them  may  seem  to  run  from  it,  they  still  return 
back  by  one  passage  or  another.  This  is  the  centre  and  capital 
of  the  sciences,  which  being  once  masters  of,  we  may  easily  ex- 
tend our  conquests  everywhere."  Now,  without  citing  innume- 
rable depositions  to  the  same  effect  from  Locke  and  many  others, 
there  is  one  thing,  on  which  we  touch  but  slightly  at  present,  as 
we  may  recur  to  it  afterwards,  yet  which  we  should  like  even 
now  the  reader  to  bear  in  mind.  It  is  one  thing  to  say,  with 
Mr.  Hume,  that  human  nature  is  the  centre  of  the  sciences, 
and  altogether  another  thing  to  say  that  the  knowledge  of  human 
nature  is  the  centre  of  the  sciences.  We  should  greatly  like  that 
this  distinction  were  clearly  apprehended.  We  shall  not  dispute 
the  temperate  and  well-weighed  deliverance  of  Reid,  that  this 
knowledge  would  give  light  to  other  branches  of  science ;  while 
we  cannot  go  the  length  to  which  the  analogies  of  Dr.  Brown 
would  carry  one,  as  if  all  other  science  hung  upon  the  philosophy 
of  mind  in  the  same  way  that  it  hangs  upon  mind  itself.  It  is 
most  true,  that,  according  to  the  powers  of  an  instrument,  so,  when 
fully  used,  will  be  its  performances  ;  and,  according  to  the  men- 
tal faculties,  so.  when  in  like  manner  used,  will  be  the  mental 
acquisitions.  But  though  the  acquisitions  depend,  and  wholly 
depend  upon  the  faculties,  they  do  not  thus  depend  upon  our 
knowledge  of  the  faculties.  There  can  be  no  question,  that  as  is 
the  psychology  of  mind,  so  is  the  state  of  its  sensations  and  of  its 
beliefs,  nay,  of  all  its  sciences — insomuch,  that  a  different  or  re- 
verse psychology  would  give  rise  to  different  or  reverse  sciences. 
But  it  follows  not,  and  it  argues  a  subtle  misunderstanding  of  the 
whole  matter  to  think  otherwise,  it  follows  not  that,  therefore,  the 
study  of  this  psychology  is  a  prerequisite  to  the  study  of  the 
sciences.  Without  the  visual  faculty,  there  could  be  no  vision ; 
yet  is  there  no  antecedent  necessity  to  become  acquainted  with 
the  visual  faculty  ere  we  can  see.  Without  the  knowing  fac- 
ulty, there  could  be  no  knowledge  ;  yet  there  is  not,  on  that 
account,  the  antecedent  necessity  for  our  making  acquaintance 
with  the  knowing  faculties  ere  we  can  know.  Ere  we  look  out 
upon  the  external  world,  we  do  not  look  back  upon  the  image  of 
it,  as  graven  on  the  retina — nay,  though  that  image  had  never 
been  observed,  though  the  first  touch  of  the  dissecting  instrument 
had  so  deranged  the  structure  of  the  eye,  as  to  make  the  exhibi- 
tion of  it  impossible,  yet,  with  the  exception  of  this  single  pheno- 
menon, might  the  beautiful  science  of  optics  have  been  as  com- 
plete and  comprehensive  a  science  as  it  is  at  this  moment.  And, 
in  like  manner,  we  are  not  to  wait  for  the  perfecting  of  mental 
science,  ere  that  hopeful  progress  can  be  made  towards  the  per- 

57 


450  morell's  modern-  philosophy. 

fecting  of  all  the  other  sciences.  It  may  be  very  long  before  those 
physiologists  be  at  one,  who  speculate  on  the  functions  of  the 
optic  nerve  which  retires  behind  the  organ  of  vision,  till  lost  in 
obscurity  among  the  convolutions  of  the  brain — yet  do  all  men 
see  aright  notwithstanding.  And  it  might  be  just  as  long  before 
that  our  mental  physiologists,  or  psychologists,  come  to  a  full  and 
final  settlement  on  all  their  questions  ;  yet,  meanwhile,  might  all 
other  men  of  science,  save  themselves,  by  philosophizing  aright 
on  all  the  other  departments  of  human  knowledge.  It  it  quite  a 
just  representation  to  speak  of  the  mind  as  the  centre  of  all  the 
sciences,  even  as  the  sun  is  the  centre  of  our  planetarium.  But 
it  was  not  the  Copemican  system,  discovered  only  a  few  centu- 
ries ago,  which  set  the  planets  rightly  agoing.  It  did  not  give 
the  law  to  their  movements  ;  it  only  discovered  the  law.  And 
neither  does  the  mental  philosophy  give  the  law  to  the  mental 
processes  ;  it  but  discovers  their  law.  In  estimating  the  real 
worth  of  this  philosophy,  and  the  relation  in  which  it  stands  to  the 
other  sciences,  there  is  often  a  strange  confounding  of  the  knowl- 
edge of  things  with  the  things  themselves.  Had  sceptics  never 
questioned  the  authority  of  first  principles,  and  so  thrown  us  back 
on  the  study  of  mind  and  of  its  laws,  the  science  of  psychology, 
most  interesting  in  itself,  yet,  for  the  mere  purpose  of  giving  evi- 
dence or  stability  to  any  of  the  other  sciences,  might  never  have 
been  called  for. 

We  are  not  going  to  depreciate  the  mental  philosophy  ;  or,  at 
least,  we  claim  the  justice  of  being  read  to  the  end,  ere  such  a 
charge  shall  be  fastened  on  us.  Though  we  see  much  to  admire 
in  M.  Comte,  yet  do  we  hold  him  utterly  in  the  wrong,  in  his 
treatment  of  the  mental  and  metaphysical  sciences  ;  nor  upon  this 
subject  can  we  go  along  with  our  own  Abraham  Tucker — while 
it  must  be  admitted,  that  there  is  much  of  substantial  truth  in  his 
following  deliverance :  u  The  science  of  abstruse  learning,"  he 
says,  u  I  consider  in  the  same  light  with  the  ingenious  writer  who 
compared  it  to  Achilles'  spear,  that  heals  the  wounds  it  had  made 
before.  It  serves  to  repair  the  damage  itself  had  occasioned,  and 
this,  perhaps,  is  all  it  is  good  for.  It  casts  no  additional  light  on 
the  paths  of  life,  but  disperses  the  clouds  with  which  it  had  over- 
spread them  before.  It  advances  not  the  traveller  one  step  on 
his  journey,  but  conducts  him  back  again  to  the  spot  from  which 
he  had  wandered."  The  child  sees  an  apple  on  the  table,  and 
affirms  an  apple  to  be  there.  A  Berkleian  philosopher  labors  to 
disprove  the  assertion.  A  second  metaphysician  arises  and  repels 
the  sophistry  of  the  first.  But  it  is  not  he  who  gives  the  law  to 
the  child — he  but  recognizes  and  respects  the  law  already  planted 
in  its  constitution  by  the  hand  of  nature.  A  sound  metaphysics 
is  not  the  fountain-head  of  all  science.  It  is  but  the  protector  or 
guardian  of  the  fountain-head,  and  stationed  there  to  ward  off  the 
inroads  of  those  who  would  vitiate  or  disturb  it.     The  following 


MORELL  S    MODERN    PHILOSOPHY.  451 

sentences  from  Kant  himself  are  altogether  to  our  mind.  "To 
deny  its  utility  (of  mental  science)  is  to  deny  the  utility  of  a 
police,  because  their  only  function  is  to  prevent  the  outrages  to 
which  we  should  be  otherwise  exposed,  and  so  as  that  everybody 
might  in  safety  go  about  his  own  business."  Had  there  been  no 
perverse  metaphysics  to  bewilder  men,  each  of  the  sciences  might 
have  gone  about  its  own  business  safely  and  prosperously  ;  and, 
save  for  the  interest  which  attaches  to  its  own  lessons,  a  counter- 
active metaphysics  might  never  have  been  required. 

But  on  this  subject  let  us  hear  Mr.  Morell  himself,  and  the  more 
that  his  arguments,  or  rather  his  illustrations,  in  favor  of  the  men- 
tal philosophy,  are  somewhat  peculiar.  It  is  high  time,  indeed, 
that  he  should  speak  in  his  own  person  ;  and  there  is  scarcely  a 
paragraph  that  we  could  quote  from  these  masterly  volumes,  for 
the  purpose  of  introducing  him  to  the  notice  of  our  readers,  which 
would  not  introduce  him  favorably.  His  phraseology  is  not 
always  marked  by  the  most  rigorous  precision ;  but  throughout 
there  is  a  charm  of  good  writing  which  never  fails  us — yet  in  a 
philosophic  style,  too,  and  that  of  singular  transparency,  and  ex- 
pressiveness, and  power.  We  have  seldom  read  an  author  who 
can  make  such  lucid  conveyance  of  his  thoughts,  and  these  never 
of  light  or  slender  quality,  but  substantial  and  deep  as  the  philoso- 
phy with  which  he  deals.  Even  when  not  convinced  by  his  rea- 
sonings, it  is  difficult  to  resist  the  impulse  by  which  we  feel  our- 
selves carried  along  in  the  flow  of  his  commanding  and  well  con- 
structed sentences.  Yet  there  is  nowhere  the  semblance  of  an 
elaborate  construction  ;  but  altogether  in  the  manner  of  one  wTho 
wields  the  pen  of  a  ready  writer  calamo  currente — yet  of  meaning 
so  patent  and  palpable,  that  the  reader  might  follow  him  oculo 
currente.  Even  the  hieroglyphics  of  the  Kantian  philosophy 
brighten  into  illuminated  characters,  at  the  touch  of  its  accom- 
plished historian. 

The  following  is  his  reply  to  the  objection  against  the  practi- 
cal utility  of  speculative  philosophy : — 

"  Such  an  objection,  we  reply,  if  insisted  on,  would  prove  fatal  to  the  cause 
of  almost  every  branch  of  human  science.  It  is  never  expected,  and  indeed  it 
is  not  possible,  that  the  mass  of  mankind  should  be  acquainted  with  the  process, 
by  which  any  kind  of  investigation  whatever  is  carried  on.  The  search  after 
truth,  even  the  truths  of  the  phenomenal  world,  is  a  process  to  them  completely 
enveloped  in  darkness;  all  they  have  to  do  is  to  reap  the  practical  fruits  of  any 
discovery,  when  it  is  made,  without  casting  one  single  thought  upon  the  steps 
by  which  others  have  arrived  at  it.  If  we  look  for  a  moment  at  the  law  by 
which  thought  is  propagated,  we  find  that  it  always  descends  from  the  highest 
order  of  thinkers  to  those  who  are  one  degree  below  them ;  from  these  again  it 
descends  another  degree,  losing  at  each  step  of  the  descent  something  more  of 
the  scientific  form,  until  it  reaches  the  mass  in  the  shape  of  some  admitted  fact 
of  which  they  feel  there  is  not  a  shadow  of  doubt,  a  fact  which  rests  on  the  au- 
thority of  what  all  the  world  above  them  says,  and  which,  therefore,  they 
receive  totally  regardless  of  the  method  of  its  elimination.  Take,  for  example, 
any  great  fact  or  law  of  nature  ascertained  by  means  of  physical  science.    Such 


452  MORELL's    MODEBJf    PHILO8QPHY1 

&  fact  is  first  of  all  perchance  wrung  from  the  most  close  and  laborious  mathe- 
matical analysis  ;  a  few  perhaps  may  take  the  trouble  to  follow  every  step  of 
this  process ;  but  the  mass  even  of  natural  philosophers  themselves  are  content 
to  see  what  is  the  method  of  investigation,  to  copy  the  formulas  in  which  it  re- 
sults, and  then  put  it  down  as  so  much  further  accession  to  their  physical 
science.  The  mass  of  intelligent,  educated  minds,  again,  with  a  general  idea 
only  of  mathematical  analysis,  accept  the  fact  or  law  we  are  now  supposing,  as 
one  of  the  many  beautiful  results  of  investigations,  which  they  acknowledge  to 
be  far  beyond  the  reach  of  their  own  powers ; — and  from  them,  lastly,  it  de- 
scends to  the  rest  of  the  community  as  a  bare  fact,  which  they  appropriate  to 
their  own  use  simply  as  being  a  universally  acknowledged  truth.  The  first 
school-boy  you  meet  would  very  likely  tell  you  with  some  accuracy  what  is  the 
rapidity  of  "light ;  but  as  to  any  observations  on  the  occultations  of  Jupiter's 
satellites,  or  on  the  phenomena  of  aberration,  or  any  other  such  method  of  com- 
puting it,  on  these  he  has  never  bestowed  a  thought.  The  commonest  seaman 
that  has  learned  the  use  of  his  sextant,  applies  to  his  own  purposes  all  the  ne- 
cessary formulas  of  trigonometry  ;  but  as  to  the  methods  of  investigating  such 
formulas,  such  matters  lie  entirely  out  of  his  reach. 

"  This  law  of  the  descent  of  thought,  however — this  gravitation  of  ascertained 
truth  from  the  higher  order  of  mind  to  the  lower,  is  not  confined  to  the  mathe- 
matical sciences,  nor  is  it  here  alone  that  the  results  of  investigation  are  trans- 
mitted by  what  may  be  termed  formulas.  There  are  such  things  as  historical 
formulas,  as  formulas  for  the  various  theories  of  the  fine  arts,  and  so  also  are 
there  philosophical  or  metaphysical  formulas.  The  results  of  long  and  patient 
reflection,  in  this  last  case  particularly,  imbody  themselves  in  some  general 
principle,  and  this  principle,  after  it  has  been  tested,  gradually  spreads  itself 
downwards  from  mind  to  mind,  until  thousands  act  upon  it  every  day  of  their 
life,  to  whom  all  philosophical  thinking  is  completely  foreign.  When,  there- 
fore, the  objection  is  raised,  that  metaphysical  inquiries  lie  beyond  the  reach  of 
the  mass,  and  cannot  practically  subserve  the  general  interests  of  mankind,  it  is 
entirely  forgotten  or  overlooked,  that  the  results  of  such  inquiries  are  intelligible 
to  all;  nay,  that  they  are  amongst  the  most  practically  efficient  and  influential 
of  all  truths  which  can  possibly  exist  in  the  mind  of  man." — Vol.  i.,  pp.  19-21. 

Now  between  the  mathematical  formula  as  convertible  into 
popular  use,  although  the  product  it  may  be  of  the  ratifications 
and  discoveries  of  many  successive  ages — between  this  and  the 
mental,  or  as  perhaps  our  author  would  rather  term  it,  the  meta- 
physical formula,  there  might  be  one  most  important  difference. 
The  former  supplies  a  new  instrument  of  observation,  which,  but 
for  the  labors  of  the  mathematician,  could  never  have  been  formed 
or  brought  into  operation.  Whereas  the  service  of  the  latter  for- 
mula, and  for  which  we  are  indebted  to  the  labors  of  the  mental 
analyst,  might  only  be  as  follows — not  to  supply  a  new,  but  only 
to  certify  and  authenticate  an  old  instrument  of  observation,  given 
ready-made  to  all  men  by  the  hand  of  nature ;  and  which  all  men 
could  have  confidently  and  successfully  made  use  of,  without  the 
necessity  of  being  told  so  by  a  right  metaphysics,  had  not  a  wrong 
metaphysics  cast  obscuration  over  the  dictates,  and  disturbed  the 
confidence  of  nature.  And  this  view  is  in  perfect  keeping  with 
the  historical  illustrations  which  are  subjoined  to  the  extract 
that  we  have  now  made  from  our  author.  What  was  it  that  dis- 
placed the  formula  of  Aristotle  ?    Was  it  not  the  formula  of  Lord 


morell's  modern  philosophy.  453 

Bacon  ?  And  what  is  to  displace  the  formula  of  Locke,  as  aggra- 
vated since  into  the  worst  formulas  of  Condillac  and  Cabanis  ?  It 
will  not,  I  fear,  be  the  formula  of  Kant,  which  itself  stands  in  need 
of  correction,  and  has  fallen  short  of  the  achievement  by  Dr.  Reid, 
whose  formula  it  was  that  displaced  the  formulas  of  Berkeley  and 
Hume  ?  But  must  we  first  study  Berkeley  and  Hume  upon  the 
one  hand,  and  then  to  rid  us  of  their  scepticism,  make  a  study  of 
Dr.  Reid  upon  the  other,  ere  that  we  make  the  confident  use 
which  nature  bids  us  of  our  senses,  and  proceed  on  the  reality  of 
an  external  world  ?  Or,  to  go  further  back,  must  we  first  learn 
the  metaphysics  of  Aristotle,  which  tyrannized  for  nearly  two 
thousand  years  over  the  understandings  of  men,  and  then  unlearn 
them  by  the  corrective  metaphysics  of  the  Novum  Organum  ? — 
whose  whole  lesson  it  is,  that  ere  we  can  ascertain  the  visible 
properties  of  anything,  we  must  look  at  it — or  the  audible,  we 
must  listen — or  the  tangible  properties,  we  must  handle — or  the 
dimensions,  we  must  measure  it — or  the  weight  we  must  weigh  it ; 
or,  in  short,  whatever  other  property  falls  within  the  range  of  ob- 
servation, we  must  take  the  proper  observational  method  for  the 
determination  of  it.  Now  that  we  have  been  recalled  from  the 
wrong  to  the  right  direction,  there  seems  no  practical  necessity  for 
taking  up  our  heads,  either  with  the  disturbing  force  which  turned 
us  away,  or  with  the  counteractive  force  which  took  us  back 
again.  Bacon  was  the  vigorous  policeman  who  drove  away  Aris- 
totle ;  but  now  that  the  service  is  effected,  is  it  aught  more  incum- 
bent to  study  him  ere  we  enter  upon  any  of  the  experimental 
sciences,  than  to  take  lessons  at  the  Scottish  school  of  metaphysics 
ere  we  venture  upon  the  every-day  use  of  our  eyes  ?  Most  as- 
suredly we  have  no  wish  to  depreciate  the  mental  philosophy,  or, 
still  less,  to  banish  it  from  the  high  place  which  it  deserves  to  oc- 
cupy in  the  encyclopedia  of  human  knowledge.  Yet  might  it  not 
be  true,  that,  but  for  its  perversities,  and  so  the  needful  correction 
of  them,  as  men  could  have  gone  aright  about  their  ordinary  busi- 
ness, so  philosophers  could  have  gone  aright  about  the  business 
of  all  the  other  sciences,  although  both  the  right  and  the  wrong 
metaphysics  had  banished  forever  from  the  remembrance  of  the 
world  ? 

The  use  of  our  right  mathematical  formula  is  not  to  displace  or 
set  aside  a  wrong  mathematical  formula,  by  which  men  had  been 
formerly  misled  in  their  computation  of  longitudes ;  but  it  is  to 
point  out  a  method  wholly  unknown  till  the  period  of  its  discov- 
ery, and  without  which  no  sound  computation  could  possibly  have 
been  made.  On  the  other  hand,  the  main  use  of  a  right  meta- 
physical formula  is  not  to  supply  us  with  any  new  method  of 
investigation ;  but  to  vindicate  the  old  and  natural  methods  from 
which  we  should  never  have  been  tempted,  save  for  the  wrong 
metaphysical  formula  which  a  better  metaphysics  have  now 
superseded.     The  mathematical  formula  supplies  a  new  lesson 


454  morell's  modern  philosophy. 

till  then  unheard  of.  The  metaphysical  but  restores  our  confi- 
dence in  the  old  lessons  of  common  sense,  old  as  human  nature 
itself,  and  which  we  never  had  deserted,  or  in  which  we  should 
never  have  lost  our  confidence,  had  not  a  perverse  metaphysics 
arisen  to  disturb  and  darken  it.  Now  that  this  service  has  been 
rendered,  the  sciences  might  be  prosecuted  with  all  vigor  and 
effect,  although  the  right  and  the  wrong  metaphysics  were  alike 
forgotten. 

And,  besides,  it  should  not  be  forgotten  that  Bacon's  Novum 
Organum  is  properly  not  a  product  of  the  mental  philosophy  after 
all.  His  main  converse  was  with  the  outer  world,  with  scarcely, 
if  ever,  a  reflex  look  on  the  world  that  is  within.  A  few  pages, 
comparatively,  says  Mr.  Morell,  u  would  suffice  to  contain  every- 
thing he  wrote  of  a  strictly  metaphysical  character." — (Vol.  i., 
79.)  A  pretty  good  evidence  this  of  what  can  be  achieved  for 
science  without  the  aid  of  that  philosophy  which  claims  to  be  the 
source  of  all  and  the  regulator  of  all.  It  is  worthy  of  all  consid- 
eration, that,  in  contradistinction  to  those  of  Descartes,  Bacon's 
views  were  chiefly  of  an  objective  character,  and  that  upon  them 
he  constructed  that  method  of  philosophizing  to  which  all  the 
observational  sciences  are  so  indebted,  not  even  excepting  the 
science  of  mind  itself.  Surely  if,  at  the  commencement  of  that 
great  epoch  in  the  history  of  science,  the  mental  philosophy  had 
so  little  to  do  with  it,  we  might  well  believe,  that,  after  the  stream 
of  investigation  had  been  turned  and  men  were  set  on  the  right 
path,  what  had  thus  begun  without  the  aid  of  metaphysics,  could 
also  without  its  aid  be  continued  and  carried  forward. 

But  we  must  be  done  with  these  preliminary,  and,  as  yet,  very 
general  observations,  that  we  might  address  ourselves  more 
closely  to  the  work  before  us.  We  shall  not  attempt,  however, 
even  so  much  as  an  abstract  of  its  multifarious  contents  ;  nor  will 
our  space,  though  enlarged  to  the  maximum  allowance,  permit 
of  more,  than,  first,  our  account  and  estimate  of  the  leading  sys- 
tems which  are  here  made  to  pass  before  us,  and,  secondly,  our 
estimate  of  Mr.  Morell's  own  philosophy,  as  far  as  this  can  be 
gathered  from  his  commentaries.  In  the  execution  of  this  two- 
fold task,  its  distinct  parts  may  not  always  stand  separately  out 
from  each  other,  but  be  occasionally  blended  into  one ;  and 
throughout  there  must  be  a  strenuous  effort  for  the  utmost  possible 
condensation,  that  some  room  might  be  left  for  our  views  of  the 
present  state  and  future  prospects  both  of  the  philosophy  and  the 
faith  in  our  own  land — so  far  as  these  might  be  affected  by  the 
growing  admiration  and  interest  which  are  now  felt  in  the  teem- 
ing speculations  of  Germany. 

And,  surely,  we  might  well  presume,  that  for  the  intelligent 
British  reader,  it  is  not  required  that  we  should  dilate  on  the  sen- 
sational philosophy  of  Locke,  or  tell  how  it  ripened  into  the 
scepticism  of  Berkeley,  and  afterwards  into  the  more  thorough 


MORELL  S    MODERN    PHILOSOPHY.  455 

and  consistent  scepticism  of  David  Hume.  Nor  need  we  to  dwell 
long  on  the  "common  sense"  philosophy,  distinctive  of  the  Scot- 
tish school,  and  first  constructed  by  Dr.  Reid  for  the  overthrow 
of  that  scepticism.  Yet  as  our  argument  mainly  turns  on  a  com- 
parison between  his  system  and  that  of  Kant,  and  this  in  order  to 
a  precise  reckoning  of  the  additions  made  by  the  latter  to  the 
former,  as  well  as  of  the  divergencies  between  them — we  must 
bestow  a  few  sentences  at  least  upon  our  own  countryman,  ere 
we  venture  our  account  of  him  who  might  well  be  styled  the 
great  Coryphaeus  of  German  transcendentalism. 

The  main  principles  of  Dr.  Reid's  philosophy  are  shortly  as 
follows : — The  first  to  be  singled  out  is  his  doctrine  of  immediate 
perception,  in  virtue  of  which  we  have  the  instant  belief  of  an 
external  reality,  without  the  intervention  of  any  image  or  any 
process  between  the  percipient  mind  and  the  object  that  is  per- 
ceived. This  is  a  primary  fact  in  the  human  constitution,  of 
which  we  have  the  absolute  assurance  that  so  it  is,  although  no 
account  can  be  given  of  how  it  is.  As  being  a  first  principle,  he 
insists  that  no  such  account  should  be  required  of  it;  and  that  "it 
is  not  easy  to  say  whether  the  authority  of  first  principles  is  more 
hurt  by  the  attempt  to  prove,  or  the  attempt  to  overturn  them : 
for  such  principles  can  stand  secure  only  upon  their  own  bottom ; 
and  to  place  them  upon  any  other  foundation  than  that  of  their 
intrinsic  evidence,  is  in  effect  to  overturn  them."  Or  to  take  a 
sentence  from  Mr.  Morell,  "  there  is  an  absurdity  in  the  very 
endeavor  to  prove  a  primary  belief,  which  no  reasoning  on  one 
side  or  the  other  can  in  any  degree  alter,  much  less  overturn." 
There  can  be  no  doubt  whatever  that  Dr.  Reid's  view  of  percep- 
tion is  just  what  we  have  stated, — though  here  and  there  in  his 
writings  there  do  occur  expressions  which  are  fitted  to  cast  a 
certain  obscuration  over  it.  For  example,  we  agree  with  our 
author  in  regretting  that  he  should  have  called  perception  an  act 
of  the  mind.  It  is  no  more  an  act  of  the  mind  than  the  sight  of 
any  visible  thing  before  me  is  an  act  of  the  eye.  Looking  may 
be  an  act,  but  perceiving  is  not — for  in  the  perception  which 
comes  by  looking  the  mind  is  altogether  passive — the  result  being 
an  irresistible  conviction  of  the  existence  of  that  which  is  per- 
ceived. Again,  sensation  is  conjoined  with  perception ;  and  as  it 
was  the  confounding  of  these  two  which  gave  rise  to  all  the  scep- 
ticism that  he  labored  to  overthrow,  the  greatest  and  most 
strenuous  effort  of  his  philosophy  is  to  discriminate  between 
them.  But  then  he  should  scarcely  have  said  that  sensation  is  the 
sign  and  perception  of  the  thing  signified — as  if,  in  the  business 
of  perception,  the  mind  had  first  to  interpret  the  sign  aright,  and 
afterwards  proceed  to  the  thing  signified.  The  mind  does  not 
look  back  upon  itself  ere  it  looks  out  on  visible  things ;  but 
instanter  and  at  once  it  holds  converse  with  these  through  the 
organs  of  sense ;  and  what  our  author  so  well  calls  "  the  immedi- 


456  morell's  modern  philosophy. 

atecy  of  our  knowledge  of  the  external  world"  is  the  unavoidable 
result  of  it. 

Now,  it  is  from  our  desire  to  keep  this  process  clear  and  unen- 
cumbered, and  because  we  would  preserve  for  it  all  its  own 
undoubted  simplicity,  that  we  demur  to  the  proposed  substitution 
of  Mr.  Morell,  when,  for  Dr.  Reid's  account  of  perception,  that 
it  is  altogether  an  act  of  the  mind,  he  affirms  that  the  very 
essence  of  perception  consists  in  the  felt  relation  between  mind 
and  matter.     Now,  there  can  be  no  relation  felt  between  mind 
and  matter  at  the  time  when  the  mind  is  not  in  thought.     And 
what  we  affirm  is,  that  matter  might  be  perceived,  and  with  the 
strongest  sense  and  conviction  in  the  mind  of  its  reality,  when  the 
mind  itself  is  altogether  out  of  the  reckoning,  or  when  no  reflex 
view  is  taken  of  mind  at  all.     In  childhood,  when  most  assuredly 
there  is  the  strongest  possible  conviction  of  the  reality  of  external 
things,  there  is  then  a  direct  view  taken  of  objects,  and  nothing 
more.     The  mind  does  not  take  cognizance,  or  any  reflex  view  at 
all  of  itself.     Even  Fichte,  or  Morell  for  him,  can  tell  us  that 
"  the  mind,  however,  is  at  first  unconcious  of  its  real  movements ; 
it  is   entirely  sunk   in  its  own   involuntary  representations,  as 
though  they  were  external  objects ;  its  whole  being  is  altogether 
of  the  spontaneous*  kind ;  it  is  yet  only  potentially  that,  which  it 
may  afterwards  by  reflection  become  actually." — {Morell,  ii.,  81.) 
Such,  then,  is  the  state  of  perception  and  belief  in  childhood.     It 
is  perception  alone,  and  without  reflection,  which  has  all  to  do 
writh  it.     Our  views,  then,  are  wholly  objective  ;  and  surely  Mr. 
Morell  will  not  affirm  that  the  ground  on  which  in  childhood  we 
believe  the  reality  of  external  things  is  not  the  very  ground  on 
which  we  believe  the  same  in  manhood.     Surely  there  is  not  one 
ground  for  this  belief  in  childhood,  and  another  ground  for  it  in 
manhood.     Now,  it  would  clear  off  many  perplexities  from  this 
argument  were  it  once  admitted,  that  in  the  business  of  percep- 
tion the  mind's  regards  are  altogether  objective.     It  is  not  more 
necessary  to  be  conscious  of  the  mind  in  the  business  of  perceiv- 
ing, than  to  be  conscious  of  the  eye  in  the  business  of  seeing ;  or 
the  consciousness  of  mind  is  as  little  an  ingredient  of  perception 
as  the  consciousness  of  the  eye  is  an  ingredient  of  sight.     Doubt- 
less, the  mind  itself  is  indispensable  to  perception,  just  as  it  is  to 
all  its  other  functions ;  but  it  follows  not  that  our  knowledge  of 
the  mind,  or  any  reflex  view  of  it,  is  therefore  indispensable. 
We  can  perceive  without  thinking  of  the  mind,  as  we  can  see 
without  thinking  of  the  eye.     There  lies  a  subtle  misunderstand- 
ing in  that  we  confound  the  mind  itself  with  our  thought  or  our 

*  The  reader  is  requested  to  bear  in  mind  this  admission  of  the  German  philosopher, 
that  there  is  a  period  oT  our  mental  history  anterior  to  reflection  or  to  the  cognizance 
which  the  mind  takes  of  its  own  operations,  when  nevertheless  it  has  the  strongest  pos- 
sible faith  in  the  objective  reality  of  sensible  things ;  as  on  this  undoubted  truth  a  most 
important  conclusion  will  be  found  to  depend. 


morell's  modern  philosophy.  457 

knowledge  of  the  mind  ;  and  the  consequence  has  been,  that  undue 
mixing  up  of  the  subjective  with  the  objective  in  which  chiefly  it 
is  that  the  erratic  movements  of  the  German  philosophy  have 
taken  rise. 

But  notwithstanding  this  preliminary  difference  between  our 
author  and  ourselves,  we  feel  quite  sure  he  will  agree  with  us,  in 
that  whatever  be  the  inaccuracies  of  language  into  which  Dr. 
Reid  may  have  fallen,  we  have  not  overstated  his  real  principle 
and  meaning  in  regard  to  the  perfect  simplicity  and  immediate- 
ness  of  that  one  step,  and  only  one,  by  which,  through  our  organs 
of  sense,  we  come  at  our  belief  in  the  reality  of  external  things. 
But  this  is  only  one  part  of  his  "  common  sense"  philosophy.  It 
recognizes  other  original  principles  in  the  constitution  of  the 
mind  besides  the  one  now  specified,  and  by  which  we  believe  in 
the  reality  of  things  sensible.  There  are  other  things  besides 
these,  for  example  things  necessary  and  immutable,  of  which  he 
says  that  "although  not  immediate  objects  of  perception,  they 
may  be  immediate  objects  of  other  powers  of  the  mind."  He 
further  says,  "  that  it  were  impossible  to  derive  some  of  our  most 
important  ideas  from  sensation  and  reflection,  as  Mr.  Locke  has 
defined  them ; "  and  that  by  our  understanding,  that  is  by  our 
judging  and  reasoning  powers,  we  are  furnished  with  many 
simple  and  original  notions.  Again,  that  we  have  other  ideas 
than  those  of  sensation  or  reflection,  in  the  confined  sense  which 
Mr.  Locke  ascribes  to  it,  which  other  ideas  are  present  to  the 
mind  when  it  defines,  when  it  distinguishes,  when  it  judges,  when 
it  reasons,  whether  about  things  material  or  intellectual;  and 
that  by  these  powers  our  minds  are  furnished,  not  only  with 
many  simple  and  original  notions,  but  with  all  our  notions  which 
are  accurate  and  well  defined,  and  which  alone  are  the  proper 
materials  of  reasoning— none  of  these  being  notions  of  the  objects 
of  sense,  or  notions  of  the  operations  of  our  own  minds ;  in  other 
words,  they  are  furnished  to  the  mind  in  another  way  than  by 
faculties  of  external  or  internal  observation.  He  did  not  share  in 
the  error  of  Dr.  Ferguson,  that  human  knowledge  is  confined 
entirely  to  the  observation  of  facts,  and  to  the  deduction  from 
these  of  general  rules ;  but  denied  that  experience  or  observation 
is  the  only  source  from  which  truth  can  be  derived,  and  pointed 
out  the  existence  of  certain  intellectual  and  necessary  judgments 
beyond  the  bounds  of  all  experience.  We  might  here  state  some 
of  the  ideas  which  do  not  come  to  us  through  the  medium  of  sen- 
sation— as  the  ideas  of  space,  of  time,  of  casualty,  of  personal 
identity,  of  substance,  of  good  and  evil — to  which  last  or  moral 
ideas,  we  should  add  those  ideas  of  quantity  and  number  which 
form  the  materials  of  all  abstract  mathematical  reasoning.  These 
ideas  do  not  take  their  origin  in  the  observational  faculties, 
neither  are  our  notions  or  beliefs  regarding  them  derived  from 
experience. 

58 


458  morell's  modern  philosophy. 

Now,  for  comparing  the  Scottish  and  German  philosophies, 
whether  as  it  respects  their  similarities  or  their  differences,  it  is 
of  importance  to  mark  how  far  these  primary  beliefs  of  Dr.  Reid 
are  at  one  with  the  primitive  judgments  of  Kant,  or  with  his 
forms  of  the  understanding.  They  may  have  been  better  named 
by  the  latter  of  these  two  philosophers — he  may  have  probed 
more  deeply  into  their  foundations,  or  rather,  perhaps,  into  their 
methods  of  development — he  may  have  constructed  a  fuller  and 
more  accurate  list  of  them ;  and  without  pronouncing  on  his 
scheme  for  their  application,  or  by  which  he  would  bring  his  cat- 
egories to  bear  on  the  objects  of  the  external  world,  it  might  be 
fully  conceded,  that  altogether  he  has  enlarged,  and  in  some 
respects  amended,  the  philosophy  of  Dr.  Reid.  Yet  let  us  not, 
because  of  the  altered  nomenclature  or  the  new  garb  that  has 
been  thrown  over  them,  let  us  not  overlook  the  substantial  iden- 
tity, and  that  in  the  most  important  respect  of  all,  between  the 
principles  of  the  Scottish  school,  and  those  from  which  Kant  has 
earned  his  chief  reputation.  The  great  step,  in  fact,  for  our 
deliverance  from  the  sensationalism  of  Locke,  and  the  consequent 
scepticism  of  Berkeley  and  Hume,  was  first  taken  in  this  country 
— and  this  by  the  establishment  of  the  doctrine,  that  the  senses 
were  not  the  only  inlets  of  our  knowledge ;  but  that  there 
were  other  and  higher  principles  of  belief  bound  up  with  the 
interior  conditions  and  structure  of  the  mind  itself,  and  existing 
apart  from  or  anterior  to  all  experience,  although  it  may  have 
been  experience  which  at  first  evolved  them.  It  forms  a  main 
peculiarity  of  Dr.  Reid's  system,  that  the  intellect  has  notions 
and  beliefs  from  within  itself  and  not  derived  from  converse  with 
the  outer  world  ;  although  in  coming  forth  to  hold  such  converse, 
it  may,  in  virtue  of  these  its  inherent  principles  and  powers,  be 
enabled  to  arrange  and  systemize,  and  to  apprehend  many  rela- 
tions not  cognizable  by  the  senses,  and  yet  between  objects  which 
are  presented  by  the  senses  to  its  contemplation.  On  this  subject 
we  can  perceive  no  originality  in  Kant,  and  this  notwithstanding 
the  distinction  which  he  makes  between  the  matter  of  our 
knowledge  and  the  form  of  it — the  one  supplied  to  us  by  the  sen- 
sitive faculty,  and  the  other  by  the  understanding.  It  is  true  that 
he  did  make  a  wide  and  most  important  deviation,  but  such  a 
deviation  as  led  the  speculative  world  back  again  to  that  abyss 
of  scepticism  from  which  Reid  had  delivered  the  previous  gener- 
ation. Had  Kant  kept  closer  by  the  Scottish  philosophy,  or  made 
a  further  extension  of  its  principles,  it  would  have  prevented  all 
that  is  sceptical  or  pyrrhonic  in  those  numerous  systems  of  Ger- 
many, to  which  his  own  philosophy  has  given  birth. 

And  here  we  must  be  permitted  to  make  use  of  Dr.  Reid's  own 
homely, though  it  may  be  not  very  academic  phraseology,  and 
scarcely  recognized  nowadays  as  the  language  of  men  of  science. 
It  did  the  required  service,  notwithstanding ;  and  what  was  of 


MORELl's    MODERN7    rillLOSOPHY.  459 

avail  then  against  the  pyrrhonism  of  Britain,  should,  in  our  humble 
estimation,  be  of  like  avail  now  against  the  pyrrhonism  of  Ger- 
many. 

In  the  impression  made  by  external  objects  upon  the  mind,  he 
distinguished  two  things — the  sensation  and  the  perception,  by 
which  latter  faculty  it  is  that  we  have  an  immediate  and  irresistible 
conviction  of  the  reality  of  these  objects.  And,  in  proceeding  tp 
the  other  fundamental  laws  of  human  belief,  which  are  tantamount 
to  the  primitive  judgments  of  Kant,  he  also  distinguished  between 
two  things,  the  notion  and  the  belief.  Had  these  judgments  been 
but  notions,  and  nothing  else,  then  would  he  have  dealt  with  them 
just  as  he  did  with  the  mere  sensations,  viewed  them  but  as 
mental  phenomena,  and  looked  no  further.  But  if,  besides  being 
notions,  they  are  also  beliefs,  then,  though  when  regarded  only 
as  acts  of  belief,  they  are  but  mental  phenomena,  and  nothing 
more,  yet,  as  every  belief  implies  an  object,  a  something  that  is 
believed — he  carried  forward  his  contemplation  to  these  objects, 
and  under  that  law  of  belief  which  he  himself  promulgated,  he 
could  not  do  otherwise  than  treat  them  as  realities.  And  most 
assuredly,  in  thus  treating  them,  he  did  no  more  than  what  all 
men  from  the  beginning  of  the  world  had  done  before  him.  Dr. 
Reid  may  have  been  the  first  to  proclaim  the  law ;  but  most 
assuredly  he  did  not  make  it,  nor  did  his  proclamation  of  it  tend 
at  all  to  its  enforcement,  or  add  in  the  least  to  its  practical  author- 
ity— for  this  law  of  man's  primary  beliefs  is  as  old  as  the  species, 
and  has  been  most  faithfully  and  implicitly  acted  upon  throughout 
all  its  generations.  Kant,  on  the  other  hand,  though  he  calls 
them  judgments,  yet  treats  them  but  as  notions — for,  judgments 
though  they  be,  the  things  judged  of  are  no  things  at  all,  or  but 
mere  nothings  in  his  estimation.  As  mere  noumena,  the  mind  is 
their  only  domicile ;  and  certainly  if  they  were  but  notions  or 
conceptions,  we  should,  in  studying  or  holding  converse  with 
them,  keep  within  the  mind  as  their  proper  and  only  home.  But 
as  they  are  beliefs,  we  must  be  permitted  to  go  in  quest  of  the 
things  that  are  believed  ;  and  then  with  some  of  them,  at  least, 
we  shall  find  ourselves  carried  forth  from  the  subjective  region 
of  the  noumena  within  to  the  objective  region  of  the  phenomena 
around  us.  The  beliefs  have  their  occupancy  in  the  former  ;  but 
the  things  believed  have  their  occupancy,  their  locum  standi, 
their  verification  and  their  being  in  the  latter  of  these  two 
regions. 

It  is  difficult  in  few  words  to  make  the  leading  principle  of 
Kant  intelligible  to  the  reader  who  may  not  yet  have  studied  him. 
But  let  us  attempt  this  as  briefly  as  we  may.  He  assigns  two 
fundamental  sources  for  our  knowledge — the  senses  and  the  under- 
standing. By  the  former,  we  receive  impressions  from  the  phe- 
nomena of  the  outer  world,  such,  perhaps,  as  an  inferior  animal 
receives  who  may  have  no  higher  faculty  than  the  senses  alone. 


460  MORELl/s    MODERN    PHILOSOPHY. 

By  the  latter  we  are  enabled  to  think  of  these  phenomena,  and  so 
to  view  them  in  certain  lights,  or  according  to  certain  relations, 
and  hence  to  invest  them  with  certain  properties  of  which  the  in- 
ferior animals  have  no  idea.  In  the  performance  of  this  office,  it 
proceeds  according  to  certain  laws  termed  by  Kant  forms  of  the 
understanding,  whence  issue  its  own  primitive  judgments  of  the 
crude  material  that  has  been  furnished  by  the  senses ;  which  judg- 
ments are  not  derived  from  the  experience,  but  are  given  forth 
by  the  understanding  itself  in  virtue  of  the  constitution  which  in- 
herently and  originally  belongs  to  it.  It  is  by  the  senses  that  we 
receive  our  intuitions  of  outward  objects.  It  is  by  the  under- 
standing that  we  receive  our  conceptions  regarding  them. 

But  perhaps  we  cannot  do  better  than  present  the  reader  with 
the  following  extract  from  Kant  himself: — 

"  Of  these  two  faculties,  the  one  is  not  to  be  preferred  to  the  other.  With- 
out the  sensational  faculty  (la  sensibilite)  no  object  would  be  given  to  us ; 
without  the  understanding,  none  would  be  thought.  The  thoughts  without 
material  (without  matter)  are  void.  Intuitions  without  conceptions  are  blind. 
Therefore,  it  is  altogether  as  necessary  to  make  our  conceptions  sensible  (that 
is,  to  apply  them  to  the  objects  which  intuition  furnishes),  as  it  is  to  make  our 
intuitions  intelligible  (that  is,  to  bring  them  under  our  conceptions).  These 
two  powers  or  capacities  cannot  exchange  their  functions.  The  understanding 
cannot  seize  intuitively  on  anything,  and  the  senses  cannot  think  anything.  It 
is  only  from  their  union  that  cognition  arises.  But  we  must  not  confound  their 
respective  places,  but  ought,  if  we  would  abide  in  the  truth,  to  distinguish 
them  carefully." — Critic  of  Pure  Reason. 

Now,  we  are  quite  willing  to  acquiesce  in  this  distinction.  Let 
our  senses  be  held  as  the  organs  by  which  we  admit  from  with- 
out those  phenomena  that  constitute  the  rude  and  unshaped  mate- 
rial of  our  notions  ;  and  let  the  understanding  be  held  as  the  seat 
of  the  notions,  or  primitive  judgments,  as  they  are  termed  by  Kant, 
and  which  he  draws  out  into  so  many  categories.  But  we  are 
not  willing  to  admit  that  these  judgments  or  categories  are  alto- 
gether subjective,  so  as  to  have  no  counterpart  realities  in  the 
outer  world — or  that  they  "  never  can  be  allowed  to  make  good 
any  kind  of  objective  knowledge  whatever"  {Morell,  i.,  215) — or, 
as  Cousin  expresses  it  in  his  account  of  the  Kantian  philosophy, 
that  the  intuitions  of  sense  represent  objects,  but  that  the  concep- 
tions of  the  understanding  represent  nothing.  Now,  it  is  here 
where  the  pyrrhoism  of  Kant  begins,  and  it  is  here  that  we  would 
take  our  stand  against  him.  Without  the  understanding,  we  might 
not  have  been  able  to  form  a  notion  of  unity,  the  first  of  his  cate- 
gories. But  present  me  with  a  single  object,  as  with  the  sole  tree 
in  a  field,  and  I  am  just  as  sure  of  there  being  one  tree  there,  and 
only  one,  as  of  there  being  a  tree  at  all.  Or  let  there  be  four  trees, 
so  as  to  exhibit  a  plurality — the  second  of  his  categories — and  I 
am  just  as  sure  of  the  objects  being  really  four,  though  without 
the  understanding  I  never  could  have  counted  them,  as  the  senses 


MORELL  S    MODERN    PHILOSOPHY.  461 

have  made  me  sure  of  the  objects  themselves.  Or  let  my  atten- 
tion be  directed  to  a  stone  of  enormous  size  and  weight,  and  in 
which  I  am  led  by  my  understanding  to  conceive  both  an  accident 
and  a  substance — the  seventh  of  his  categories — I  do  more  than 
conceive  of  these ;  I  believe  that  outside  of  me  there  lies  a  body 
having  the  objective  reality  of  great  heaviness,  and  of  a  substra- 
tum withal  or  a  matter  that  sustains  this  property  and  all  the 
others  which  belong  to  it.  Or,  lastly,  and  to  make  use  of  his  own 
example,  let  me  fall  in  with  the  body  of  a  murdered  man,  then, 
by  his  eighth  category  of  cause  and  effect,  the  murder  will  in- 
stantly suggest  the  notion  of  a  murderer.  But  it  will  do  more  than 
this.  It  will  as  instantly  and  powerfully  suggest  the  conviction  of 
a  murderer;  and  this  causality,  which  he  would  represent  as  hav- 
ing no  other  locale  than  in  the  mind,  or  as  being  merely  a  law  of 
human  thought,  we,  and  every  man  else  on  the  face  of  the  earth, 
believe  as  firmly  as  in  our  own  existence,  to  have  had  its  locale 
in  the  outer  world, — or,  in  other  words,  that  the  relation  of  cause 
and  effect  between  these  two  objects,  the  murderer  and  the  mur- 
dered, have  had  as  sure  place  and  fulfilment,  not  within  us  but 
without  us,  on  the  spot  where  the  deed  was  perpetrated,  as  the 
objects  themselves  have. 

We  are  told  by  Cousin  that  the  great  reform  of  mental  science 
in  the  eighteenth  century,  which  began  in  Scotland,  was  after- 
wards taken  up  in  Germany,  and  in  the  hands  of  Kant  was 
mightily  extended.  But  the  truth  is,  that  if  Kant  had  made  a 
fuller  surrender  of  himself  to  our  Scottish  philosophy,  it  would 
have  saved  him  from  his  worst  and  greatest  error.  It  is  true 
that,  in  partial  concurrence  with  Dr.  Reid,  he  did  make  surrender 
of  that  pyrrhonism  which  Hume  and  Berkeley  had  before  planted 
in  our  organs  of  sense,  these  outworks,  as  it  were,  of  the  mental 
constitution.  But  it  was  only  to  carry  with  him  this  pyrrhonism 
entire  to  the  citadel  of  the  intellect,  for  its  expulsion  from  whence 
a  new  battle  must  be  fought — a  battle  to  which  both  Morell,  and 
even  Cousin  himself,  give  a  somewhat  uncertain  sound.  It  is  our 
confident  persuasion  that  the  full  and  conclusive  victory  can  be 
effected  in  no  other  way  than  by  calling  in  the  aid  of  our  common 
sense  philosophy,  when  all  it  will  have  to  do  is  just  to  fight  its  old 
battle  over  again.  It  was  the  assertion  of  the  fundamental  laws 
of  human  belief  which  cleared  away  idealism  from  the  region  of 
the  senses,  and  it  is  only  the  reassertion  of  these  that  can  clear  it 
away  from  the  higher  region  of  the  understanding.  Meanwhile, 
a  certain  crude  material  of  things  which,  though  only  termed  phe- 
nomena, are  admitted  to  be  real,  with  a  curious  investiture  of 
properties  and  forms  affirmed  to  be  unreal — this  is  all  which,  at 
the  hands  of  the  Kantian  philosophy,  we  have  for  a  universe. 

But  there  is  another  distinction  made  between  these  two.  The 
sensational  faculty  (la  sensibilite)  is  viewed  as  altogether  passive : 
and  this  passiveness  is  termed  its  receptivity.     It  receives  its  im- 


462  MORELL*    MODERN'    PHILOSOPHY. 

pressions  from  phenomena  without ;  and  the  representations  given 
of  these,  called  also  intuitions,  are  held  to  be  pure  results  of  the 
manner  in  which  it  has  been  affected  by  the  phenomena.  Whereas 
the  understanding  is  said  to  be  a  faculty  of  which  the  develop- 
ment is  spontaneous.  The  one  is  deemed  to  be  a  capacity,  the 
other  a  power.  If  the  former  be  a  receiver,  the  latter  is  spoken 
of  as  a  giver — "  as  giving  form  and  figure  to  the  material  fur- 
nished by  sensation."  (Morell,  i,,  208.)  Now  we  are  quite  wil- 
ling to  admit,  that,  while  it  is  only  by  the  intuitions  of  sense  we 
come  into  converse  with  phenomena  at  all,  we  could  not  without 
the  conceptions  of  the  understanding  apprehend  the  relations  of 
the  phenomena  to  each  other,  or  the  various  forms  and  categories 
which  we  attach  to  them.  But  we  insist  that  when  looking  out- 
ward on  any  scene  of  contemplation,  the  relations  and  forms  sug- 
gested by  things  within  our  view  are  something  more  than  ob- 
jects of  conception.  They  are  objects  of  belief — a  belief,  the  acts 
of  which  have  their  standing-places  in  the  mind,  but  the  objects 
of  which  have  their  standing-place  in  the  scene  that  is  before  us. 
The  understanding  is  said  to  be  a  formal  and  regulative  faculty. 
But  we  do  not  go  forth  to  form  and  to  regulate.  The  forms  and 
regularities  are  previously  there ;  and  the  understanding  so  con- 
stituted as  to  have  the  power  of  recognizing  them,  regards  them 
as  so  many  objective  realities.  This  "  truth-organ  within  the  hu- 
man soul"  (Morell,  ii.,  508)  is  just  as  little  creative  and  as  much 
receptive  as  are  the  organs  of  sense.  It  is  true,  that  we  can 
direct  the  understanding  by  our  power  of  attention,  just  as  we 
can  direct  the  eye  by  our  power  of  looking.  But  the  view  taken 
by  the  one  is  as  much  a  result  from  the  state  of  things  without  as 
is  the  view  impressed  upon  the  other,  and  the  beliefs  to  which  it 
leads  stand  as  little  in  need  of  being  verified  by  any  logical  or 
philosophical  deduction  whatever.  It  is  of  importance  to  guard 
and  limit  the  expressions  which  the  disciples  and  admirers  of  Kant 
are  so  apt  to  fall  into.  For  example,  the  understanding  is  spoken 
of  as  being,  in  contradistinction  to  the  senses,  an  active  and  con- 
structive faculty  ;  and  the  constructions  that  have  been  attempted 
under  this  idea  of  it  are  among  the  worst  extravagances  of  Ger- 
man speculation.  The  will,  too,  has  been  vested  with  such  a 
command  over  this  constructive  intellect,  that  in  framing  their 
schemes  of  universe,  it  might  well  be  said  of  Schelling  and  others 
— that  they  construct  at  pleasure.  And  even  those  of  them  who 
are  not  disposed  to  take  any  flight  beyond  the  actual  stable  objec- 
tive universe  in  which  they  find  themselves,  will  still  speak  of  it, 
not  as  being  a  goodly  and  well-ordered  system  in  itself,  but  rather 
as  a  chaos  of  shapeless  and  crude  phenomena,  without  form 
and  void,  which  the  senses,  these  organs  of  the  outer  man,  have 
gathered  from  this  rude  and  primitive  outfield  and  got  within  their 
hold — thence  to  be  taken  up  as  raw  material  into  the  manufactory 
of  the  intellect,  by  whose  powers  and  primitive  judgments  it  is 


MORELL  S    MODERN    PHILOSOPHY.  463 

that  they  are  put  in  order  and  elaborated  into  a  sort  of  painting 
or  panorama,  or  phantasmagoria  of  their  own  making. 

But  returning  to  Kant,  as  being  a  disciple  at  first  of  the  Leib- 
nitzian-Wolfian  school  of  philosophy,  it  is  to  be  expected  of  his 
own  philosophy  that  we  might  there  discern  the  traces  of  his  de- 
scent from  his  old  and  illustrious  master.  Every  one  knows  the 
celebrated  aphorism  cited  by  Locke  in  a  letter  to  Leibnitz, — 
"  Nihil  est  in  intellectu  quod  non  prius  in  sensu  :"  and  of  the  no 
less  celebrated  addition  which  Leibnitz  made  to  it,  when,  in  his 
reply  to  the  English  philosopher,  he  returned  it  in  this  extended 
form, — "  Nihil  est  in  intellectu  quod  non  prius  in  sensu,  nisi  intel- 
lectus  ipse."  There  is  much  truth  in  the  saying  of  Madame  de 
Stael — "  From  this  principle  is  derived  all  that  new  philosophy 
which  exercises  so  much  influence  over  the  mind  of  Germany." 
But  the  question  is,  have  they  made  a  legitimate  derivation 
from  it  ? 

What  is  true  of  the  intellect  being  in  the  intellect,  must  be  also 
true  of  all  its  contents.  Let  us  grant  that  the  primitive  judgments 
of  Kant  form  part  of  these  contents  ;  and  our  former  question 
recurs,  whether  are  these  judgments  but  conceptions,  or  are  they 
beliefs  1  It  were  a  false  psychology  which  should  give  a  wrong 
deliverance  upon  this  question.  If  they  are  really  beliefs,  and 
yet  are  proceeded  with  as  if  they  were  only  conceptions,  this 
were  a  misunderstanding  of  the  actual  state  of  our  mental  phe- 
nomena. If  but  conceptions,  then  are  they  wholly  subjective, 
nor  can  we  find  any  valid  outlet  from  these  to  things  objective, 
or  to  an  objective  world.  But  if  they  are  beliefs,  then  when 
viewed  only  as  acts  of  belief  are  they  subjective  also.  But  the 
question  remains — if  beliefs,  what  are  the  objects  of  belief,  what 
are  the  things  believed  1  And  should  these  things  be  external  to 
the  mind,  or  apart  from  the  mind — then  is  there  thus  and  at  once 
opened  up  a  ready  channel  from  the  subjective  to  the  objective  ; 
and  on  this  consideration  alone  should  we  contend  for  the  objec- 
tive reality  of  unity,  and  plurality,  and  causation,  and  substance, 
nay,  even  of  space  and  time — all  of  which  things  Kant  has  doomed 
to  perpetual  imprisonment  within  the  chambers  of  the  human 
intellect.  The  consideration  now  stated  may  be  repudiated  as 
too  plain,  and  all  the  more  so,  that  it  is  couched  in  the  homely 
and  common-sense  phraseology  of  Dr.  Reid.  Nevertheless,  it 
is  the  very  consideration  on  which  the  scepticism  of  his  day  was 
put  to  flight,  and  the  reality  of  an  external  world  was  again  ad- 
mitted into  the  creed  of  philosophers  ;  and  as  it  was  of  avail  then 
in  making  valid  the  testimony  of  the  senses,  it  should  be  of  equal 
avail  now  in  making  valid  the  testimony  of  the  intellect.  There 
seems  no  alternative  between  the  admission  of  both  and  the  re- 
jection of  both  ;  and  if  space,  and  time,  and  causation,  and  sub- 
stance, and  number,  and  the  relations  of  quantity,  merely  because 
taken  cognizance  of  by  the  mind  in  another  way,  are  to  be  de- 


464  mohell's  modern  philosophy. 

prived  of  all  objective  reality,  then  we  see  not  how  the  outward 
phenomena  should  be  permitted  to  retain  theirs  ;  or  how  a  greater 
deference  should  be  rendered  to  the  voice  of  the  senses  than  to 
the  voice  of  the  higher  faculties.  It  does  seem  a  marvellous  in- 
consistencv  on  the  part  of  Kant,  that  he  should  thus  have  admitted 
a  counterpart  reality  over  against  the  impressions  made  upon  the 
senses,  and  allowed  of  no  such  counterpart  to  the  conceptions  of 
the  understanding.  Had  these  been  conceptions  alone,  we  could 
have  understood  and  have  agreed  with  him  ;  but  ranking,  as  they 
do,  among  our  original  and  indestructible  beliefs,  we  cannot  but 
charge  him  with  a  scepticism  in  every  way  as  inveterate  as  has 
ever  been  exemplified  in  the  history  of  human  speculation.  We 
might  as  well  have  the  old  and  entire  scepticism  of  David  Hume 
back  again — for  certain  it  is  that  by  some  such  grievous  misman- 
agement in  his  demonstration  as  Cuvier  has  charged  him  with, 
has  Kant  both  sanctioned  and  given  rise  to  the  worst  excesses  of 
those  who  followed  in  his  train. 

But  even  Fichte  himself,  among  the  first  and  most  distinguished 
of  these  followers,  will  bear  us  out,  in  the  principle  at  least  of 
what  we  are  contending  for,  even  that  there  can  be  no  belief 
without  an  object.  In  the  transition  which  he  made  from  his  first 
to  his  second  philosophy,  the  following  is  stated  to  have  been  the 
process  of  thought  by  which  he  arrived  at  it : 

"  Allow  that  our  free  activity  represents  certain  notions  to  itself,  there  must 
be,  thought  Fichte,  something  which  is  represented.  Mere  knowing  can  be 
nothing,  unless  there  is  something  which  is  known  ;  mere  thinking  can  be 
nothing,  unless  there  is  something  which  is  thought ;  and  mere  perception  can 
be  nothing,  unless  there  is  something  which  is  perceived.  To  make  our  sub- 
jective activity  in  the  act  of  knowing,  perceiving,  &c,  the  absolute,  is  to  sup- 
pose that  the  only  reality  in  the  universe  is  a  perceiving  which  perceives 
nothing,  a  thinking  which  thinks  nothing,  a  knowing  which  knows  nothing." — 
Vol.  ii.,  p.  93. 

After  this  we  might  well  admit  the  principle  of  Leibnitz,  that 
the  intellect  itself,  with  all  its  contents  of  course,  is  in  the  intellect. 
But  if  there  are  beliefs  there,  and  the  objects  of  these  beliefs  be 
things  out  of  the  intellect,  it  is  surely  competent  for  us  to  enter- 
tain these  things ;  and,  in  obedience  to  our  own  mental  constitu- 
tion, whose  prompt  and  powerful  biddings  should  be  heard,  nay, 
and  will  be  heard  above  all  the  voices  of  all  the  philosophers,  it 
is  alike  competent  for  us  to  believe  them.  Let  us  then  go  forth 
of  the  intellect,  and  hold  our  believing  converse  with  the  things 
outside,  which  Nature  thus  tells  us  to  be  so  many  realities.  The 
transition  from  the  subjective  to  the  objective,  is  by  a  way  open 
to  all  men,  notwithstanding  the  manifold  attempts  of  speculators 
to  obstruct  and  to  darken  it. 

But  on  this  subject  we  have  met  with  nothing  more  satisfactory 
than  the  following  pregnant  sentences  from  M.  Cousin,  when  de- 
fending himself  against  the  attacks  of  Schelling,  who  is  disdainful 


morell's  modern  philosophy.  465 

of  psychology,  and  affirms  that  it  cannot  conduct  to  the  knowl- 
edge of  real  objects  or  to  existences,  for  that  this  were  stepping 
beyond  its  only  province,  the  province  of  consciousness,  and  all 
which  is  in  the  consciousness  is  purely  subjective.  Cousin,  on  the 
other  hand,  holds  that  there  is  a  faculty  within  us,  by  which  we 
take  direct  knowledge  of  truth,  and  not  only  of  necessary  and 
universal  principles,  but  of  real  objects  and  existences  ;  and,  like 
other  continental  writers,  he  denominated  this  the  faculty  ofreason. 
Let  us  acquiesce  for  the  time  being  in  this  phraseology,  and  we 
shall  understand  the  force  of  the  questions  which  he  puts  to  Schel- 
ling  in  the  introduction  to  his  History  of  Moral  Philosophy  :  "  Is 
this  faculty  of  reason  less  legitimate  because  it  falls  under  the  eye 
of  consciousness?  And  who  has  demonstrated  that  conscious- 
ness not  only  looks  upon  that  which  it  sees,  but  has  the  astonish- 
ing property  of  metamorphosing  it  by  this  its  magical  look,  and 
so  as  to  impose  upon  it  its  own  nature  V  Again,  "  Reason  is  not 
struck  with  impotency  because  it  acts  under  the  eye  of  conscious- 
ness. It  does  not  for  that  change  its  nature.  It  does  not  lose 
the  divine  force  which  is  in  it,  and  the  wings  which  have  been 
given  to  it  to  attain  to  [the  knowledge  of]  beings,  and  so  rise 
even  to  Him  from  whom  it  emanates.  Consciousness  attests  this 
magnificent  development  of  reason — it  does  not,  however,  make 
the  development,  nor  does  it  belong  to  it  to  alter  the  character 
thereof."  We  do  hope  that  our  reader  enters  into  these  replies. 
Consciousness  might  depone  to  the  fact,  that  there  are  certain 
knowing  faculties  in  the  mind ;  but  it  does  not,  therefore,  usurp 
the  office  of  these  faculties,  which  surely,  on  the  other  hand,  do 
not  lose  the  power  of  doing  their  own  work  merely  because  con- 
sciousness is  looking  on,  or  has  set  his  eyes  upon  them.  Or,  turn- 
ing back  to  the  plain  language  of  Dr.  Reid,  consciousness  tells  us 
of  certain  beliefs  in  the  mind.  But  if  we  will  only  distinguish, 
like  our  own  common-sense  philosopher,  between  the  acts  of  be- 
lief, and  the  objects  of  belief,  we  should  be  at  no  loss  to  understand 
what  it  is  that  consciousness  does  in  this  matter,  and  what  it  is  that 
is  done  by  our  other  faculties.  The  act  of  belief  is  a  subjective 
thing  ;  audit  is  for  the  consciousness  to  take  cognizance  thereof,  as 
this  is  the  faculty  which  has  to  do  with  things  subjective.  The  ob- 
ject of  belief  or  thing  believed  may  be  out  of  the  mind,  and  there- 
fore an  objective  thing — and  so  taken  cognizance  of  not  directly  by 
the  consciousness,  but  left  to  be  taken  cognizance  of  by  its  own 
distinct  and  proper  faculty.  Consciousness  is  itself  a  knowing  fac- 
ulty, and  its  office  is  to  tell  us  what  is  in  the  mind  ;  and  therefore 
what  the  other  knowing  faculties  of  the  mind  are.  But  it  deals 
not  with  the  objects  of  these  faculties — for  then  would  the  cen- 
sure of  M.  Schelling  hold  good,  that  it  was  stepping  beyond  its 
province.  It  therefore  deals  not  with  the  object  of  these  other 
faculties,  but  leaves  the  charge  and  cognizance  of  them  respec- 
tively to  the  faculties  themselves.     We  humblv  think  that  had 

59 


466  morell's  modern  philosophy. 

Morell,  and  even  Cousin  himself,  at  all  times  kept  this  distinction 
in  view,  it  would  hive  saved  certain  misapprehensions  or  mis- 
statements into  which  both  of  them  have  fallen.  The  above  ex- 
tracts, however,  from  Cousin,  give  the  clearest  possible  view  of 
the  distinct  provinces  of  consciousness  and  reason ;  or,  speaking 
more  generally,  of  the  distinction  that  obtains  between  the  reflex 
view  which  consciousness  takes  of  the  faculties,  and  the  direct 
working  of  the  faculties  themselves. 

After  this  we  do  not  see  where  the  difficulty  lies  of  a  transition 
from  the  subjective  to  the  objective,  or  how  it  is  that  either  Cousin 
or  Morell  should  make  such  a  work  about  it.  If  consciousness 
depone  to  a  certain  primary  and  original  belief,  what  more  have 
we  to  do  than  to  give  ourselves  up  to  it,  and  follow  its  guidance 
over  that  outer  domain  or  department  of  truth  which  belongs  to 
it  ?  Or  if  consciousness  depone  to  the  existence  and  the  work- 
ings of  a  certain  faculty — call  it  reason  or  perception — what  more 
have  we  to  do  than  just  to  learn  of  that  faculty  the  informations 
which  it  gives  ? — authoritative  informations  they  of  course  will 
be,  and  such  as  should  carry  the  belief  of  the  whole  human  race 
along  with  them,  seeing  that  they  are  dictated  by  the  resistless 
and  fundamental  laws  of  the  human  understanding.  Once  that 
the  way  is  opened  up  between  a  sound  psychology  and  a  sound 
ontology,  or  rather  between  psychology  and  all  the  objective 
sciences,  let  us  walk  on  that  way  with  confident  footstep,  and  not 
still  be  groping  for  it — not  still  be  lying  at  the  foundation,  instead 
of  going  on  unto  perfection.  But  one  or  t\\  o  extracts  from  Morell 
must  be  presented  to  the  reader  ere  the  conclusion  can  be  fully 
made  out  that  we  want  to  impress  upon  him. 

In  his  Critique  on  James  Mill,  one  of  the  ablest  in  the  work,  we 
have  the  following  important  passage  : — 

"  Now  we  believe  that  a  thorough  analysis  of  the  case  shows,  that  reason 
has  as  much  right  to  assure  us  of  the  nature  and  existence  of  being  or  substance, 
as  perception  has  to  assure  us  of  the  phenomena  that  we  term  qualities ;  that 
just  in  the  same  manner  as  we  have  an  inward  intuition  of  the  one  by  the 
senses,  so  we  have  an  inward  intuition  of  the  other  by  the  reason.  The  cogni- 
zance of  attributes  by  perception  is  as  much  a  subjective  process,  as  much  a  part 
of  my  inward  consciousness,  as  is  the  cognizance  of  matter  or  substance  by 
the  reason ;  and  if  we  deny  the  validity  of  the  latter,  there  is  no  superior  evi- 
dence why  we  should  accept  that  of  the  former.  As  well  may  we,  in  fact, 
reject  the  quality  itself  as  an  objective  phenomenon,  as  the  substratum  in  which 
it  adheres.  We  know  the  properties  of  the  external  world,  says  our  author, 
because  we  have  sensations  which  convey  them.  But  what  are  sensations 
except  states  of  mind  ?  If  a  state  of  mind  termed  sensation  can  give  us  the 
knowledge  of  properties,  why  may  not  a  state  of  mind  termed  intuition  or  rea- 
son give  us  the  knowledge  of  substance  ?  Reason  has  as  much  right  to  take  us 
out  of  ourselves  as  perception,  and  if  the  one  cannot  assert  objective  validity, 
neither  can  the  other.  There  is  no  valid  medium,  therefore,  as  it  seems  to  us, 
between  complete  subjective  idealism,  like  that  of  Fichte,  on  the  one  side,  and 
the  admission  of  ontology  as  a  proper  branch  of  scientific  investigation  on  the 
other."— Vol.  i.,  p.  328. 


MORELL  S  MODEHN  PHILOSOPHY.  467 

The  sentence  marked  by  <  nrselves  in  italics  forms  with  us  an 
all-sufficient,  and  indeed  the  only  refutation  against  the  scepticism 
of  Kant  and  his  followers.  It  is  identical  with  the  refutation  of 
Dr.  Reid  against  the  scepticism  of  David  Hume,  and  by  which  he 
vindicated,  not  the  objective  reality  alone  of  sensible  things,  taken 
cognizance  of  by  the  faculty  of  perception,  but  of  things  intellec- 
tual, which  are  taken  cognizance  of  by  other  and  higher  faculties. 
It  is  true  that  Reid  had  not  learned  to  refer  these  latter  judgments 
to  the  one  faculty  of  reason,  as  Kant  and  Cousin  do.  But  practi- 
cally there  is  a  full  agreement  between  him  and  the  latter  of 
these  two  philosophers— although  the  former  of  them,  in  differing 
from  Reid,  and  because  misled  by  his  own  exclusive  tendencies 
to  the  subjective,  fell  into  a  sad  aberration,  to  the  grievous  and 
irreparable  damage  both  of  his  own  philosophy  and  that  of  those 
who  succeeded  him.  The  reader  will  not  fail  to  observe,  that 
while,  in  the  above  extract  from  Morell,  he  assigns  to  perception, 
as  distinct  from  reason,  the  office  of  assuring  us  of  the  reality  of 
phenomena,  it  would  appear,  from  our  brief  extracts  of  Cousin, 
that  with  him  it  is  the  office  of  reason  to  assure  us  of  all  reality 
whatever.  This,  to  the  vast  majority  of  British  readers,  is  an 
unwonted  application  of  the  term,  nor  would  they  at  once  under- 
stand by  "  reason"  any  other  than  the  faculty  of  reasoning.  But 
reason,  by  the  new  classification  or  new  nomenclature,  is  now 
understood  to  be  the  faculty  of  a  direct  and  immediate  appercep- 
tion of  existences,  whether  it  be  of  our  own  existence,  or  that  of 
things  apart  from  ourselves.  Reason,  therefore,  differs  from 
reasoning  or  "  la  raisori"  from  "  le  raisonnement." 

But  ere  we  proceed  further,  we  must  present  another  extract 
from  Dr.  Morell,  taken  from  his  estimate  of  Dr.  Reid  : — 

"  We  cannot  but  regard  it,  however,  as  unfortunate,  that  Reid  should  have 
framed  his  idea  of  mental  philosophy  so  completely  upon  the  model  of  the 
natural  sciences,  that  he  should  have  determined  to  confine  it  within  the  narrow 
limits  of  psychology,  and  attempt  nothing  beyond  the  mere  classification  of 
phenomena.  The  psychological  method,  which  he  followed,  we  regard  as  ex- 
cellent, nay,  as  the  only  true  one,  since  it  is  absolutely  necessary  to  determine 
the  power  and  validity  of  the  instrument,  by  which  all  our  knowledge  is  ac- 
quired, before  we  define  what  that  knowledge  is,  and  to  what  extent  it  can 
reach.  But  is  it  necessary  to  pause,  when  we  have  classified  the  various 
mental  phenomena  which  every  day's  experience  gives  us,  and  altogether  inter- 
dict any  further  advancement?  True  it  is,  that  we  are  able  to  perceive 
nothing  beyond  phenomena,  but  are  we  on  that  account  to  neglect  the  deductions 
of  reason,  the  loftiest  of  our  faculties,  when  it  would  lead  into  the  region  of  ex- 
istence itself?  Whether  we  will  or  not,  we  must  allow  some  ontological  con- 
clusions, inasmuch  as  we  cannot  conceive  of  the  attributes  either  of  matter  or 
mind,  without  the  notion  of  a  substance  in  which  they  adhere.  As  far  as  ex- 
perience goes,  it  would  be  quite  sufficient  to  call  a  material  object  a  cluster  of 
qualities,  or  to  denominate  mind  a  combination  of  powers,  but  reason  does  not 
allow  us  to  stop  until  we  have  added  a  substratum  to  which  both  qualities  and 
powers  belong.  If  all  the  pure  and  legitimate  deductions  of  our  reason  are  in- 
cluded in  the  idea  of  psychology,  we  are  content  to  confine  philosophy  within 
its  limits;  but  if  not,  then  we  contend  for  a  science  of  ontology,  that  has  for  its 


468  morell's  modern  philosophy. 

matter  all  that  belongs  to  the  essence  of  man,  of  the  universe,  and  of  God, 
viewing  them  as  objective  realities,  whose  existence  we  never  could  assume 
from  the  mere  observation  of  phenomena,  could  never  deduce  by  logical  pro- 
cesses, but  which  we  draw  as  the  necessary  conclusions  of  our  higher  reason. 
In  this  way  we  should  be  led  into  a  loftier  region  of  thought,  to  a  kind  of  prima 
phitosophia,  where  the  sciences  of  mind,  of  matter,  and  of  Deity,  all  unite  in 
one."— Vol.  i.,  pp.  239,  240. 

The  charo-e  which  he  here  prefers  against  the  Scottish  school, 
and  which  both  Kant  and  Cousin  had  made  before  him,  is 
repeated  in  various  other  passages,  as,  when  speaking  of  those 
who  follow  the  psychological  method,  he  says  that  "  they  give  us, 
for  the  most  part,  a  valid  philosophy,  but  too  often  a  shallow 
one."  Again — "  Scotland,  true  to  its  principles  of  '  common 
sense,'  has  insisted  on  the  validity  of  those  ideas  which  appear  to 
be  the  natural  product  of  the  human  reason,  and  resisted  every 
attempt  to  resolve  them  into  sensational  elements  ;  and  Germany, 
boldly  grappling  with  the  deepest  questions  of  ontology,  has 
drawn  a  broad  distinction  between  the  phenomenal  world,  as 
viewed  by  the  senses,  and  the  real  world,  as  comprehended  by 
the  intellect."  Lastly — "  The  English  and  Scottish  writers  gen- 
erally interdict  the  ontological  branch  of  philosophy,  as  lying 
beyond  the  reach  of  our  faculties.  Intellectual  science  with  them 
is  confined,  for  the  most  part,  to  psychology,  that  is,  to  the  analy- 
sis and  classification  of  our  mental  phenomena."  We  beg  that 
our  readers  will  re-peruse  both  the  paragraphs  and  the  sentences 
that  we  have  now  taken  from  Morell,  that  they  might  better 
understand  wherein  it  is  that  we  agree,  and  wherein  we  differ 
with  him,  and  not  with  him  only,  but  with  the  continental  philoso- 
phy in  general,  as  contrasted  with  our  own. 

First,  then,  we  most  cordially  unite  with  Mr.  Morell  in  affirm- 
ing the  as  great  objective  reality  of  those  things  which  the  reason 
takes  cognizance  of,  as  of  those  which  are  taken  cognizance  of 
by  the  senses.  Let  us  take  but  one  instance — the  moon  and  the 
high  water,  both  of  which  we  do  see.  We  believe  in  the  objec- 
tive reality  of  both  these  phenomena ;  but  we  believe,  also,  in  the 
objective  reality  of  that  vinculum  which  we  do  not  see,  and  which 
binds  them  together  in  the  relation  of  cause  and  effect.  We  have 
read  nothing  more  masterly  or  decisive  than  the  utter  overthrow 
by  Cousin  of  the  sceptical  metaphysics  of  Kant. 

But,  secondly,  we  do  not  agree  with  Mr.  Morell  in  the  censure 
which  he  passes  on  the  Scottish  philosophers  of  mind,  because 
that,  after  having  demonstrated  the  objective  reality  of  certain 
things  that  came  under  its  judgment,  they  did  not  go  out  upon 
these  things,  in  order  to  philosophize  on  their  nature  and  properties. 
Would  he  have  had  them,  for  example,  after  having  vindicated 
the  reality  of  a  sensible  and  external  world,  would  he  have  had 
them  to  enter  on  the  respective  walks  of  investigation  whereof  it 
is  the  theatre — on  chemistry,  or  natural  history,  or  natural  philoso- 


morell's  modern  philosophy.  469 

phy  ?  Their  own  proper  science  makes  no  such  requisitions  as 
these,  and  as  little  does  it  call  for  a  science  of  ontology  at  their 
hands.  The  study  of  the  knowing  faculties  is  altogether  distinct 
from  the  study  of  the  things  to  be  known  by  them ;  and  to  com- 
plain of  the  mental  philosopher  because  he  has  not  gone  forth 
beyond  the  limits  of  his  own  domain,  is  just  as  irrational  as  to 
complain  of  him  who  has  constructed  a  telescope,  that  he  has  not 
also  constructed  a  treatise  on  astronomy.  Our  complaint  of  the 
Scottish  savans  and  professors  is  exactly  the  reverse  of  that  which 
our  author  has  preferred  against  them — even  that  they  mix  up  too 
much  of  psychology  with  the  treatment  of  their  respective 
sciences.  We  will  not  even  exempt  the  chairs  of  logic  and  ethics, 
as  generally  conducted,  from  this  condemnation ;  for  however 
cognate  these  sciences  might  be  reckoned  to  the  science  of  mind, 
it  is  one  thing  to  tell  what  be  its  phenomena  and  laws,  and  another 
to  tell  what  be  the  principles  and  methods,  whether  of  good 
reasoning  or  good  morals.  It  is  not  that  we  undervalue  mental 
sience.  So  far  from  this,  we  would  assign  for  it  a  separate  chair, 
where  might  be  expounded  the  principles  and  processes  of  the 
human  mind,  and,  amongst  these,  the  fundamental  laws  of  human 
belief — to  which  laws  the  other  professors  might  refer  when 
thrown  back  upon  them  at  such  times  as  scepticism  might  choose  to 
question  the  first  principles  of  any  of  their  sciences.  When  the 
informations  of  the  telescope  are  questioned,  we  are  necessitated 
to  explain  the  properties  and  vindicate  the  power  of  the  instru- 
ment— after  which  we  look  not  to  the  teloscope,  but  through  it 
and  from  it  to  the  planets ;  and  then  we  should  never  think  of 
mixing  up  any  demonstration  of  the  eye  and  object  glasses  of  the 
telescope  with  our  demonstration  of  the  satellites  and  rings  of 
Saturn.  We,  to  this  extent,  keep  the  two  subjects,  or  the  two 
sciences  of  optics  and  astronomy,  clear  of  each  other ;  and  it  had 
been  well  if,  to  the  same  extent,  the  mental  psychology  had  been 
kept  clear  of  all  those  studies  which,  as  directed  to  objects  distinct 
from  the  mind,  might  be  classed  under  the  general  appellation  of  the 
objective  sciences.  We  as  little  think  of  the  mind  when  engaged 
in  the  prosecution  of  any  of  these  sciences,  as  the  astronomer 
thinks  of  his  telescope  when  looking  through  it  on  the  phenomena 
of  the  heavens.  The  Scottish  philosophers  did  well  in  confining 
themselves  to  their  own  proper  and  self-prescribed  task,  the 
description  or  demonstration  of  the  human  mind ;  and  in  stopping 
where  they  did,  they  evince  a  more  enlightened  discernment  than 
our  author,  of  the  limits  and  landmarks  which  separate  the  various 
provinces  in  the  territory  of  human  thought. 

But  Mr.  Morell  has  no  quarrel  with  them  because  they  did  not 
go  forth  upon  any  of  the  domains  of  physical  science.  His 
charge  against  them  is  that  they  did  not  go  forth  on  the  science 
of  ontology.  Now  if  they  were  right  in  refraining  from  the 
former,  we  hold  them  pre-eminently  right  in  not  venturing  one 


470  morell's  modern  philosophy. 

footstep  upon  the  latter.  We  feel  equally  sure  as  our  author  of 
the  existence  of  a  substratum  for  both  mind  and  matter,  and  by 
which  their  respective  phenomena  are  sustained ;  but  when  he 
tells  us  of  his  as  great  certainty  as  to  the  nature  of  it,  then  we  must 
frankly  avow,  that  we  have  no  more  faith  in  an  ontology 
grounded  upon  such  a  basis,  than  we  have  in  the  ontology,  alto- 
gether monstrous  though  it  be,  of  Schelling,  whose  intellectual 
intuition  into  the  mysteries  of  being  is  just  as  worthy  of  our  con- 
fidence, as  is  the  reason  of  Kant,  when  coupled  with  the  illegiti- 
mate extension  to  which  it  has  been  carried  hy  his  followers. 

But  this  review  is  lengthening  on  our  hands.  We  are  not  get- 
ting fast  enough  on  in  this  fragmental  way  of  it.  Our  prescribed 
limits  make  it  imperative  that  wTe  should  dwell  no  longer  on  the 
separate  portions  of  the  work  before  us.  We  must  therefore 
proceed  instanter  to  the  summing  up — to  the  judgment,  leaving 
the  grounds  of  the  judgment  to  be  gathered  by  the  readers  of 
these  volumes.  At  this  rate  we  must  omit  for  the  present  most 
of  what  we  at  first  contemplated,  in  the  hope,  however,  of  other 
opportunities.  Meanwhile  let  us  limit  ourselves  to  such  generali- 
zations as  shall  best  enable  us,  in  briefest  space,  to  pronounce 
between  our  own  home  philosophy  and  that  of  the  continent. 

In  what  remains  then,  and  before  our  final  reckoning  with  Mr. 
Morell  himself,  we  shall  have  chiefly  to  deal  with  the  French 
philosopher  Cousin,  whom  indeed  Mr.  Morell  may  be  said  to  have 
constituted  the  arbiter  amongst  the  various  systems  and  specula- 
tions which  are  made  to  pass  before  us  in  his  historical  review. 
He  could  not  have  fixed  on  an  abler  or  more  accomplished  critic 
of  all  bygone  philosophy  in  modern  times.  Warm  from  our 
admiration  of  that  masterly  analysis  by  which,  in  his  sixth  lesson 
on  the  philosophy  of  Kant,  he  lays  bare  the  turning-point  on 
which  this  great  thinker  descends  into  the  abyss  of  scepticism,  and 
also  of  his  eloquent  advocacy  for  the  prerogatives  of  common 
sense,  even  as  interpreted  and  acted  on  by  the  humblest  of  our 
species* — we  feel  it  difficult  to  speak  with  all  that  freedom 
which  still  his  own  errors,  as  they  appear  to  us,  would  require 
and  justify.  But  to  this  we  are  encouraged  by  his  noble  declara- 
tion, when  to  vindicate  his  treatment  of  Kant,  he  tells  us  that  he 
shall  ever  prefer  common  sense  to  genius,  and  the  general  mind, 
or  mind  of  the  whole  world,  to  that  of  any  man  whatever. 

Cousin,  then,  founder  of  the  eclectic  school  in  France,  fully 
admits — nay,  in  his  strictures  on  Kant,  argues  with  the  utmost 
ability  and  address,  the  distinction  between  what  he  terms  the 
spontaneous  and  the  reflex  exercises  of  the  human  understanding. 

*  See  his  "  Le<;ons  sur  la  Philosophic  <le  Kant,  1844." — P.  150.  >  This  work  is  the 
fittest  bridgcway  of  communication  that  we  happen  to  know,  for  an  ordinary  British 
reader,  to  all  which  might  heretofore  have  seemed  obscure  and  inaccessible  to  his  eyes  in 
the  transcendentalism  of  Germany — clearing  up  in  it  all  that  is  unintelligible,  and  there- 
by disarming  it  of  all  that  is  formidable — for  even  in  the  walks  of  high  Philosophy,  as 
well  as  of  superstition,  will  it  often  be  found  that  ignorance  is  the  mother  of  devotion. 


MORELLS    MODERN    PHILOSOPHY.  471 

We  have  long  been  in  the  habit  of  recognizing  these  under  the 
title  of  the  mind's  direct  and  reflect  processes,  and  we  shall  con- 
tinue so  to  name  them.  Now  as  Fichte  affirms  in  a  previous 
extract,  and  as  Cousin  repeatedly  affirms  in  the  best  and  ablest 
of  his  passages,  the  direct  is  anterior  to  the  reflex.  In  other 
words,  the  mind's  first  and  earliest  converse  is  not  with  itself,  but 
with  things  exterior  to  and  apart  from  itself.  Such  is  the  order 
of  nature,  that  invariably,  in  nature's  education  of  all  spirits,  the 
objective  precedes  the  subjective.  During  the  first  years  of  its 
tuition  in  the  school  of  nature,  the  life  of  the  mind  may  be  said  to 
be  a  life  of  objectivity  all  over.  It  is  wholly  taken  up  with  out- 
ward things ;  and  it  is  when  thus  engaged,  that  almost  all  its 
primary  beliefs  are  formed — its  belief  in  the  reality  of  space  and 
time — its  belief  in  the  reality  of  sensible  objects,  and  not  only 
of  material  phenomena,  but  of  the  material  substratum  which 
upholds  them — its  belief  in  those  likenesses,  whether  among  ob- 
jects or  events,  by  which  it  is  afterwards  enabled  to  generalize 
them  either  into  the  classes  of  natural  history  or  the  laws 
of  natural  philosophy  ;  and,  to  add  no  more,  its  belief  in  that  per- 
vading causality  which  binds  together  every  event  in  nature  with 
something  prior  that  went  before,  with  something  posterior  which 
comes  after  it.  These  beliefs  are  felt  and  familiar  beliefs — are 
the  universal  inmates  of  every  bosom ;  and  took  up  their  firm 
occupancy  there,  while  the  mind  was  exclusively  employed  in 
looking  forth  of  itself  among  outward  things,  and  long  before  it 
cast  any  inward  regard  on  its  own  contents  or  its  own  processes. 
Let  it  not  be  imagined,  from  our  representation  of  the  matter, 
or  from  the  view  that  we  are  now  giving  of  the  state  of  the  case, 
let  it  not  be  imagined  that  we  are  lapsing  into  the  sensationalism 
of  Locke,  or  setting  aside  the  primitive  judgments  of  Kant.  The 
child  who  has  struck  the  table  with  its  spoon,  and  elicited  a  noise, 
and  then  strikes  again  with  a  firm  expectation  of  the  same  noise, 
is  the  subject  alike  of  the  sensation  spoken  of  by  the  one  philoso- 
pher, and  of  the  judgment  spoken  of  by  the  other.  It  has  the 
experience  of  both ;  and  in  connection  with  the  first,  or  with  the 
sensation,  it  believes  in  the  reality  of  the  spoon  and  of  the  table, 
and  also  of  the  noise ;  while,  in  virtue  of  the  second,  or  of  the 
judgment,  it  as  firmly  believes,  that  when  it  makes  the  like  stroke 
as  before,  a  like  noise  will  ensue  from  it.  In  other  words,  it 
assigns  the  same  outward  and  objective. reality  to  the  causation 
that  it  does  to  the  visible  objects,  whether  of  sight  or  of  hearing, 
wherewith  it  is  occupied.  And  why  is  it  that  Kant  should  assign 
these  things  differently  ?  How  comes  he  to  believe  in  the  reality 
of  those  phenomena  which  his  senses  tell  him  of,  and  not  also  to 
believe  in  the  objective  reality  of  that  causation  which  binds  them 
together,  and  which  his  judgment  tells  him  of?  Is  it  because  the 
one  is  further  in  than  the  other — the  organs  of  these  primitive 
judgments   of  his,  than  the   organs   of  sight   or   hearing — is   it 


472  morell's  modern  philosophy. 

because  of  this,  that  he  takes  the  report  of  the  senses  on  things 
without  while  he  rejects  all  the  informations  of  the  understanding 
or  the  reason,  save  only  on  things  subjective  and  ideal,  and 
wholly  within  the  mind.  This  is  too  ridiculous.  Both  are  alike 
receptive  of  truth  from  without.  Nature  strongly  teaches  the 
same  confident  reliance  on  the  testimony  of  the  sentinels  at  the 
gate,  and  on  that  of  the  informants  who  fill  the  station  of  waiters 
in  the  inner  chambers  of  the  mind.  And  this  appeal  to  the 
original  and  imprescriptible  beliefs  of  humanity  forms  our  great, 
indeed  our  only,  defence  against  the  scepticism  of  Berkeley,  or 
Hume,  or  Kant,  or  in  whatever  form,  at  the  hands  of  other 
philosophers,  or  other  fashions  of  philosophy,  it  may  afterwards 
assume. 

Now,  it  is  on  the  strength  of  these  very  considerations,  or  the 
authority  of  our  direct  and  primary  judgments,  and  these  given 
forth  anterior  to  any  reflex  view  that  we  take  of  them,  that  Cousin 
argues,  with  the  most  consummate  ability  and  address,  against 
the  scepticism  of  Kant,  when  he  denies  the  objective  reality  of 
space  and  time,  and  of  his  various  categories  of  the  understand- 
ing. But  there  is  still  another  consideration  which,  with  all  defer- 
ence to  his  fine  intelligence,  we  should  like  him  to  ponder  well 
and  to  apply,  and  for  which  we  crave  a  close  attention  from  our 
readers.  This  priority  of  the  direct  to  the  reflex  holds  true,  not 
only  in  respect  to  the  different  stages  of  human  life — the  child- 
hood and  youth  of  the  understanding  being  chiefly  taken  up  with 
things  of  objective  contemplation,  and  not  being  till  its  manhood, 
when  the  faculty  of  consciousness  is  fully  developed,  that  it  can 
best  take  account  of  its  own  processes.  But,  over  and  above 
this,  it  were  better  for  the  mental  analyst,  even  to  his  latest  days, 
if,  ere  he  entered  on  those  reflex  processes  by  which  he  is  led  to 
his  various  doctrines,  and  it  may  be  discoveries,  he  were  before- 
hand and  frequently  to  describe  (parcourir)  or  run  over  the 
direct  processes  which  correspond  to  them.  The  truth  is,  that 
though  it  be  only  by  looking  inwardly,  or  looking  back  upon  our- 
selves, that  we  take  cognizance  of  our  various  beliefs,  these 
beliefs  must  be  formed,  so  as  to  exist,  ere  they  can  be  recognized 
or  reflected  on.  But  on  what  ground  is  it  that  they  are  formed  ? 
or  how  is  the  mind  employed  when  these  beliefs  arise  in  it  ?  Not, 
most  certainly,  in  looking  inwardly  upon  itself,  save  when  it  is 
making  a  study  of  its  own  processes ;  for  in  every  other  science 
but  that  of  mind  do  the  beliefs  proper  to  them  arise  in  the  act  of 
looking  to  and  dwelling  upon  the  subject-matter  of  these  sciences. 
To  get  at  our  mathematical  beliefs,  we  do  not  look  inwardly  to 
the  mind,  but  outwardly  to  the  diagrams  of  geometry,  or  to 
the  signs,  with  their  things  signified,  of  the  analytical  calculus. 
For  our  experimental  beliefs,  at  least  in  things  material,  we  look 
outwardly  and  not  inwardly.  Even  in  logic,  it  is  not  by  the 
study  of  any  inscriptions  on  the  tablet  of  our  nature,  that  we 


MORELLS    MODERN    PHILOSOPHY.  473 

settle  the  distinctions  between  good  and  bad  reasoning.  And,  to 
add  no  more,  in  theology,  although  the  constitution  of  the  mind, 
with  its  adaptation  to  the  surrounding  world,  forms  one  of  our 
most  illustrious  evidences  for  a  God,  yet,  if  there  be,  as  many 
contend,  a  direct  apperception  by  us  of  the  Supreme  Creator,  it 
were  in  the  act  of  looking  upwardly  and  objectively  to  Himself 
that  we  should  seize  upon  it,  and  not  by  going  in  quest  of  it 
among  the  recesses  of  our  own  psychology.  And  yet  this  is  the 
very  quarter  in  which  Cousin  tells  us  that  he  has  found  it.  The 
following  is  an  extract  from  one  of  Cousin's  works,  as  given  by 
Morell : 

"  '  It  is  by  observation  (he  remarks),  that  with  the  penetralia  of  the  con- 
sciousness, and  at  a  depth  to  which  Kant  never  descended,  under  the  apparent 
relativeness  and  subjectivity  of  necessary  principles,  I  have  succeeded  in  seiz- 
ing and  analyzing  the  instantaneous,  but  veritable  fact  of  the  spontaneous  ap- 
perception of  truth,  an  apperception  which,  not  immediately  reflecting  itself, 
passes  unperceived  in  the  depths  of  the  consciousness ;  yet  is  the  real  basis  of 
that,  which  later,  under  a  logical  form,  and  in  the  hands  of  reflection,  becomes 
a  necessary  conception.  All  subjectivity  and  reflexivity  expires  in  the  spon- 
taneity of  apperception.  But  the  primitive  light  is  so  pure,  that  it  is  unper- 
ceived :  it  is  the  reflected  light  which  strikes  us,  but  often  in  doing  so,  sullies 
with  its  faithless  lustre  the  purity  of  the  former.  Reason  becomes  subjective 
by  its  connection  with  the  free  and  voluntary  Me,  which  is  the  type  of  all  sub- 
jectivity ;  but  in  itself  it  is  impersonal,  it  does  not  appertain  any  more  to  one 
than  to  another,  it  does  not  even  appertain  to  humanity  as  a  whole,  its  laws 
emanate  only  from  itself. ' " — Vol.  ii.,  pp.  388-9. 

Now,  this  spontaneous  apperception  which  Cousin  sought  after, 
and  thinks  that  he  has  seized  upon,  he  has  sought  for  in  the  place 
where  it  is  not  to  be  found,  till  after  it  has  been  sensibly  realized 
in  the  act  of  looking  outward  on  the  object  of  apperception.  He 
looks  for  it,  and  imagines  that  he  has  got  his  first  hold  of  it  among 
the  reflections  of  the  psychological  tablet  within  ;  whereas,  if  to 
be  had  at  all,  spontaneous  as  it  is,  it  will  be  in  the  primary  act  of 
looking  direct  on  the  radiance  that  cometh  from  the  object  of  con- 
templation without.  And  yet,  by  the  same  marvellous  oversight, 
does  his  too  faithful  and  imitative  disciple  follow  up  the  above 
extract  with  this  sentence  : 

"  Such  is  the  chief  ground  on  which  Cousin  repels  the  latent  scepticism  of 
a  too  subjective  philosophy,  and  such  the  method  by  which  he  proposes  to 
place  the  lofty  authority  of  reason,  as  an  evidence  for  objective  reality,  upon 
an  immovable  foundation." 

This  is  the  completest  example  of  an  intellectual  cross-purpose 
on  the  part  both  of  Mr.  Cousin  and  Mr.  Morell  that  we  ever  hap- 
pen to  have  met  with.  It  is  among  the  latencies  of  the  subjec- 
tive that  they  fancy  to  have  found  that  evidence  of  an  objective 
reality  which  only  beams  upon  us  from  the  objects  themselves.  It 
is  the  consciousness,  looking  inwardly,  which  places  upon  an  im- 
movable foundation  the  lofty  authority  of  the  reason  that  looks 
outwardly.     What  becomes  of  the  priority*  of  the  spontaneous  to 

60 


474  morell's  modern  philosophy. 

the  reflective  amid  these  strangely  conflicting  affirmations? 
Cousin  tells  us  of  the  primitive  light  being  unperceived,  while  it 
is  the  reflective  light  which  strikes  us.  This  is  the  first  and  only- 
instance  we  everlieard  of,  whether  in  things  mental  or  material, 
of  the  reflection  being  more  powerful  than  the  radiance. 

We  think  it  is  in  some  of  his  works  he  tells  us,  that  we  cannot 
know  a  thing  without  knowing  that  we  know  it.  Even  this  posi- 
tion might  well  be  questioned.  Our  knowledge  of  any  object 
must  surely  be  anterior  to  our  knowledge  of  that  knowledge. 
The  knowledge  which  is  proximate  to  the  object  must  surely  come 
first,  and  the  knowledge  which  is  more  remote  from  this  object, 
as  lying  behind  the  other,  must  as  surely  come  afterwards.  Ere 
we  know  of  a  knowledge,  that  knowledge  must  exist,  or  have  been 
already  formed  ;  and  so  when  our  consciousness  takes  cognizance 
of  any  belief  regarding  things  apart  from  the  mind,  that  belief 
must  be  anterior  to  the  cognizance  which  consciousness  takes  of 
it,  and,  therefore,  it  is  a  belief  generated  by  some  other  faculty, 
and  not  resting  on  the  authority  of  consciousness  at  all.  This 
tallies  with  the  real  history  of  the  human  mind  :  for  how  often, 
and  how  long  in  childhood  and  youth,  and  prior  to  the  full  devel- 
opment of  our  consciousness,  do  we  know  without  knowing  that 
we  know,  without,  at  least,  thinking  that  we  know,  and  most  cer- 
tainly without  ever  taking  account  of  our  knowledge.  But  we 
shall  insist  no  longer  on  the  erroneousness  of  this  position,  yet 
cannot  help  remarking,  that  in  the  above  extract  from  Cousin 
there  lies  involved  a  position  still  more  flagrantly  erroneous.  He, 
there,  in  effect  tells  us,  that  we  might  know  of  our  knowing,  what 
we  do  not  yet  know.  He  takes  from  psychology  at  first  hand, 
that  information  which  psychology  can  only  give  at  second  hand. 
It  is  the  reason,  by  his  own  confession,  which  is  the  first  informant ; 
and  yet  its  voice  is  unheard,  till  echoed  back  on  the  ear  of  the 
inner-man,  from  the  recess  of  the  consciousness.  He  has  made 
the  primary  and  the  secondary  change  places.  It  is  his  Carte- 
sianism  which,  in  this  instance,  has  misled  him  ;  though  it  is 
strange,  that  he  who  has  reasoned  so  admirably  on  the  distinction 
between  the  spontaneous  and  the  reflex,  and  the  priority  of  the 
former,  and  has  brought  this  to  bear  with  such  felicity  and  force 
on  the  scepticism  of  Kant,  so  as  to  achieve  its  entire  overthrow — 
it  is  strange  that  he  should  have  fallen  into  such  an  error.  It  is 
the  pervading  error  of  Morell.  He,  though  perhaps  himself  un- 
aware of  it,  is  Cartesian  all  over. 

It  is  far  otherwise  with  the  primary  beliefs  of  Dr.  Reid.  These 
are  such,  that  on  the  moment  of  their  being  simply  stated,  they 
are  read  and  recognized  of  all  men — as  belief  in  the  reality  of  an 
external  world,  belief  in  the  object  of  our  distinct  remembrance, 
belief  in  the  constancy  of  nature.  These  beliefs  announce  them- 
selves to  the  consciousness,  whereas,  in  the  above  instance,  it  is 
Mr.  Cousin's  consciousness  which  tells  him  what  to  believe.    This 


MORELL  S    MODERN    PHILOSOPHY.  475 

faculty  of  consciousness,  doubtless,  has  a  distinct  province  of  its 
own  ;  but  so  also  have  the  faculties  of  perception,  and  memory, 
and  judgment ;  and  the  beliefs  of  these  latter  faculties  are  just  as 
immediate  and  original  as  those  of  consciousness.  It  is  the  office 
of  consciousness  to  take  cognizance  of  the  beliefs  which  are  formed 
in  those  provinces,  distinct  from  its  own  ;  but  it  is  not  conscious- 
ness which  forms  them.  These  beliefs  are  formed  and  felt  in  the 
direct  exercise  of  the  faculties  themselves  ;  and  it  is  after  this,  not 
surely  before  this,  that  they  become  the  subjects  of  a  reflex  cogni- 
zance by  the  consciousness.  Whether  it  be  Dr.  Reid's  percep- 
tion of  an  external  world,  or  Mr.  Cousin's  apperception  of  a  Deity, 
these  must  first  be  felt,  and  then  reflected  on.  But  Mr.  Cousin 
reverses  this  process.  The  first  discovery  he  makes  of  his  said 
apperception  is,  in  the  act  of  searching  among  the  recesses  of  his 
own  psychology.  With  him  the  reflex  comes  first,  and  the  direct 
afterwards.  It  speaks  most  inauspiciously  for  this  apperception 
of  Cousin,  that  he  has  found  his  way  to  it  by  an  utter  reversal  of 
the  right  working  and  order  of  the  human  faculties. 

And  that  Morell  fully  participates  in  this  illusion  of  Cousin,  nay, 
to  a  much  greater  extent  than  the  master  whom  he  loves  to  honor, 
is  abundantly  manifest  throughout  both  his  volumes,  where  he  is 
constantly  mixing  up  consciousness,  and  the  facts  of  conscious- 
ness, as  if  this  faculty  had  an  integral  and  creative  part  to  per- 
form in  them,  with  those  beliefs  of  which  it  is  only  the  remem- 
brancer and  registrar.  He  often  forgets  the  wise  deliverance  of 
Dr.  Reid,  that  "  perception  commends  our  belief  upon  its  own 
authority,"  and  this  anterior  to,  and  apart  from  consciousness,  the 
proper  office  of  which  faculty,  is  not  to  originate  this  belief,  not 
even  to  ratify  it,  but  simply  to  record  it.  "  And  it  were  difficult," 
says  Dr.  Reid,  "  to  give  any  reason  for  distrusting  our  other  facul- 
ties, that  will  not  reach  consciousness  itself."  We  should  have 
liked,  if  both  Mr.  Cousin  and  Mr.  Morell  had  proceeded  more  on 
the  views  of  our  Scottish  philosopher,  in  the  estimate  which  he 
makes  of  Des  Cartes.  They  would  not  have  made  his  "Co- 
gito,  ergo  sum,"  so  much  the  starting-point  of  their  mental  phi- 
losophy. 

We  might  now  understand,  why  it  is  that  both  these  philoso- 
phers make  such  a  difficulty  of  effecting  a  passage  from  the  sub- 
jective to  the  objective.  There  was  no  such  difficulty  felt  by  Dr. 
Reid,  for  he  laid  as  immediate  a  hold  on  one  as  on  the  other,  and 
had,  therefore,  no  demand  for  a  passage  betwixt  them.  It  is  true 
that  he  described  such  a  passage,  nay,  actually  struck  one  out 
with  his  own  hands — when  in  the  act,  and  for  the  purpose  of  re- 
pelling scepticism,  he  made  his  appeal  from  perception  to  con- 
sciousness— not  that  the  latter  faculty  creates  the  beliefs  of  the 
former,  but  only  depones  to  them.  But  this  movement  of  his  was 
from  the  objective  to  the  subjective,  which,  after  having  accom- 
plished, he  had  no  difficulty  in  finding  his  way  back  again.     Not 


476  morell's  modern  philosophy. 

so  with  our  two  philosophers,  who,  not  for  the  defence  of  a  sound 
mental  philosophy,  but  for  the  primary  construction  of  one,  make 
consciousness  their  point  of  departure,  as  Des  Cartes  did  before 
them,  and  are  thence  groping  for  an  outlet  from  the  subjective  to 
the  objective — from  their  psychology  to  their  ontology.  And 
where  do  they  think  that  they  have  found  one  ? — in  a  lofty  region 
of  transcendentalism,  by  the  stepping-stone  of  an  alleged,  but 
withal  a  most  obscure  and  questionable  apperception,*  they  arrive 
at  the  immediate  view  of  an  objective  God  ;  whence  as  from  a 
summit,  and  by  a  sort  of  derivative  process,  they  propose  to  effec- 
tuate their  descent  to  the  other  doctrines,  both  of  Natural  Theo- 
logy and  Mental  Science.  Our  outlet  from  the  subjective  to  the 
objective  is  differently  placed  from  theirs, — on'  the  platform  of 
visible  and  created  things,  whence  we  make  our  way  upward  to 
God,  among  the  realities  of  His  own  stable  and  existent  universe. 
Theirs  may  be  a  more  sublime,  but  ours,  though  an  humbler,  we 
hold  to  be  a  safer  movement,  and  by  a  surer  pathway. 

We  have  long  thought  that  it  might  alleviate  the  mysterious- 
ness,  nay,  facilitate  the  study,  of  mental  science,  did  we  proceed 
more  on  a  felicitous  notion  of  Dr.  Thomas  Brown — a  philosopher 
of  whom,  now  that  we  have  named  him,  we  have  only  time  to 
say  that  both  Cousin  and  Morell  hold  him  in  greatly  too  light  esti- 
mation. He  regards  consciousness  as  but  a  brief  act  of  the  mem- 
ory. And  one  does  not  see  why  we  should  not  remember  our 
mental  states,  our  emotions  for  example,  and  distinguish  between 
them — just  as  we  remember  our  bodily  feelings,  so  as  to  distin- 
guish, for  example,  by  memory  alone,  and  after  they  have  passed 
away,  between  the  pain  arising  from  a  blow,  or  a  puncture,  or  a 
burn,  and  thus  also  between  the  mental  affections,  such  as  those 
of  fear,  or  grief,  or  joy,  or  gratitude.  We  are  quite  sure  that 
such  a  view  would  mitigate  the  notion  which  many  have,  as  if  ac- 
quaintance with  mind  were  a  thing  hopelessly  beyond  the  reach 
of  their  acquirement.  It  enables  us  to  dispose  of  the  difficulty 
alleged  by  Mr.  Hume  in  the  way  of  all  mental  or  metaphysical 
inquiries — a  difficulty  so  formidable  in  the  eyes  of  M.  Comte  that 
he  founds  upon  it  an  argument  against  the  mental  philosophy  as  a 
thing  impossible  or  null — even  that  the  mind  cannot  think  of  two 
things  at  once,  cannot,  therefore,  think  at  one  and  the  same  time 
of  an  object  of  contemplation  without,  and  the  emotion  which  it 
awakens  within.  And  thus,  when  it  turns  from  the  object  to  the 
subject,  from  that  which  caused  the  emotion  to  the  emotion  itself, 
the  latter,  deprived  of  its  needful  aliment,  even  the  presence  of 
its  counterpart  object,  vanishes  from  the  inner  man,  and  so  eludes 
every  attempt  to  obtain  a  view  of  it.  We  cease  to  fear  when  we 
cease  to  think  of  that  which  makes  us  afraid,  or  to  be  angry  when 
we  cease  to  think  of  the  provocation.     But  though  we  cannot,  on 

*  And  this,  too,  first  discovered,  not  in  the  light  of  its  own  radiance,  but  in  its  shad- 
owy reflection  among  the  arcana  of  our  inner  nature. 


MORELL  S    MODERN    PHILOSOPHY.  477 

this  account,  immediately  behold  the  emotion,  we  can  remember 
it ;  and,  to  make  this  remembrance  all  the  surer  and  more  vivid, 
the  mind  can  quickly  alternate  between  the  object  and  its  emo- 
tion, so  as  to  have  the  acts  of  memory  as  short  and  frequent  as 
we  will.  This  might  be  all  the  more  necessary  when  examining 
our  beliefs,  than  when  examining  our  emotions — seeing  that  our 
feeling  of  the  former  is  greatly  more  faint  and  languid  than  of  the 
latter ;  and  this  we  conceive  to  be  the  actual  procedure  of  our 
mental  analysis  when  they  investigate  the  phenomena  or  powers 
of  the  human  understanding.  There  is  much  less  than  most  peo- 
ple imagine  of  what  is  called  a  looking  inwardly  upon  ourselves  in 
the  prosecution  of  these  studies.  Even  in  the  philosophy  of  the 
Absolute — that  most  appalling  and  recondite  of  all  themes  to  a 
merely  British  understanding — it  is  the  objective  which  precedes 
the  subjective.  In  the  controversy,  for  example,  between  Cousin 
and  Sir  W.  Hamilton,  whether  the  idea  of  the  infinite  be  positive 
or  negative,  the  first  thing  which  the  mind  does  is,  not  to  introvert 
or  look  inwardly,  but,  as  it  were,  to  heave  itself  outwardly,  on 
space,  or  upwardly  to  the  immense  and  illimitable  Deity ;  and 
then,  with  instant  memory,  to  take  cognizance  of  its  own  state 
while  thus  employed.  Our  author,  too,  ventures,  though  with  be- 
coming diffidence,  on  the  theme  which  has  set  these  two  great 
thinkers  at  variance  ;  and  we  gladly  avail  ourselves  of  the  oppor- 
tunity to  present  our  readers  with  another  very  interesting  speci- 
men of  his  work.  All  the  three,  we  have  no  doubt,  looked  far 
more  objectively  than  subjectively,  far  more  outward  than  inward, 
when  making  way  to  their  respective  deliverances  on  this  crown- 
ing question  of  the  German  transcendentalism. 

"  Here  we  have  three  minds  standing  severally  at  the  head  of  the  respective 
philosophies  of  Britain,  France  and  Germany,  assuming  each  a  different  hypo- 
thesis on  the  subject ;  while  Kant,  the  Aristotle  of  the  modern  world,  assumes 
a  fourth.  Under  such  circumstances  he  must  be  a  bold  thinker,  who  ventures 
to  pronounce  confidently  upon  the  truth  or  error  of  any  one  of  these  opinions. 
Few,  perhaps,  in  our  own  country  would  be  inclined  to  side  either  with  Kant 
or  Schelling ;  the  great  point  of  dispute  is  most  likely  to  be  between  Sir  W. 
Hamilton  and  M.  Cousin,  that  is  to  say,  whether  the  infinite,  the  absolute,  the 
unconditioned,  be  really  cognizable  by  the  human  reason,  or  whether  it  be  not ; 
whether  our  notion  of  it  be  positive,  or  whether  it  be  only  negative.  And  here 
we  freely  confess,  that  we  are  not  yet  prepared  to  combat,  step  by  step,  the 
weighty  arguments  by  which  the  Scottish  metaphysician  seeks  to  establish  the 
negative  character  of  this  great  fundamental  conception ;  neither,  on  the  other 
hand,  are  we  prepared  to  admit  his  inference.  We  cannot  divest  our  minds 
of  the  belief,  that  there  is  something  positive  in  the  glance  which  the  human 
soul  casts  upon  the  world  of  eternity  and  infinity.  Whether  we  rise  to  the 
contemplation  of  the  Absolute  through  the  medium  of  the  true,  the  beautiful, 
or  the  good,  we  cannot  imagine  that  our  highest  conceptions  of  these  terminate 
in  darkness,  in  a  total  negation  of  all  knowledge.  So  far  from  this,  there  seem 
to  be  flashes  of  light,  ineffable,  it  may  be,  but  still  real,  which  envelope  the 
soul  in  a  lustre  all  divine,  when  it  catches  glimpses  of  infinite  truth,  infinite 
beauty,  and  infinite  excellence.  The  mind,  instead  of  plunging  into  a  total 
eclipse  of  all  intellection,  when  it  rises  to  this  elevation,  seems  rather  to  be 


478 


MORELL  S    MODERN    PHILOSOPHY. 


dazzled  by  a  too  great  effulgence  :  yet  still  the  lighl  is  real  light,  although,  to 
any  but  the  strongest  vision,  the  effect  may  be  to  blind  rather  than  to  illumine. 
It  is  not  by  negations  that  men  are  governed  ;  but  it  is  before  the  idea  of  eter- 
nity and  infinity  that  our  fiercest  humanity  is  softened  and  subdued.  Until  we 
are  driven  from  this  position  by  an  irresistible  evidence,  we  must  still  regard 
the  notion  of  the  infinite,  the  absolute,  the  eternal,  as  forming  one  of  our  funda- 
mental notions,  and  one  which  opens  to  us  the  highest  field,  both  for  our  present 
meditation  and  our  future  prospects." — Vol.  ii.  pp.  397,  398. 

Now,  it  is  precisely  thus  that  we  would  test  the  alleged  apper- 
ception of  Cousin,  and  upon  which  it  is  that  he  claims  for  the  hu- 
man mind  a  faculty  by  which  it  can  take  an  immediate  view  or 
cognizance  of  the  Deity.  We  should  certainly  not  seek  for  it  in 
the  place  where  he  conceives  that  it  was  found  by  himself — in  the 
deep  interior  of  his  own  psychology.  In  the  language  of  Scrip- 
ture, we  should  lift  up  our  souls  unto  God  ;  and  seek  not  into  our- 
selves, but  seek  after  Him  if  haply  we  might  find  Him.  It  is  thus 
that  we  tried  to  accompany  Schelling ;  and  unable  to  see  as  he 
saw,  cast,  at  a  very  early  stage,  his  speculation  away  from  us, 
long  before  his  cosmogony  was  so  far  matured,  as  that  it  could 
be  brought  to  the  touch-stone  of  natural  philosophy,  and  be  found 
by  its  experiments  to  be  an  illusion.  The  a  priori  theology  of 
Cousin  has  not  yet  been  carried  forward  to  such  an  issue,  and  we 
wait  for  the  products  of  its  felt  or  fancied  inspiration.  It  is  obvi- 
ous, both  of  him  and  Morell,  that,  in  virtue  of  this  discovery,  they 
feel  as  if  on  the  eve  of  a  great  coming  enlargement.  Let  them 
try  ;  but  meanwhile,  it  is  our  own  shrewd  imagination,  that  it  is 
marvellously  little  they  will  make  of  it. 

But  any  theological  argument  which  our  space  will  leave  room 
for,  we  should  like  to  hold  with  Mr.  Morell  alone.  We  cannot, 
however,  take  leave  of  Mr.  Cousin  without  rendering  the  homage 
of  our  grateful  admiration  to  one  who,  at  this  moment,  holds  the 
balance  between  the  two  philosophies  of  Germany  and  Scotland. 
It  is  true  that  in  his  theology  he  is  altogether  wrong,  though, 
judging  from  the  general  spirit  and  drift  of  his  speculations,  we 
should  say  of  him,  that  he  is  not  unhopeful.  But  what  has  earned 
for  him  our  peculiar  esteem  is  his  having  so  nobly  asserted  the 
prerogatives  of  common  sense  against  the  sceptical  philosophy  of 
Kant.  In  particular,  his  manly,  and  withal,  most  effectual  de- 
fence of  the  reality  of  space  and  time,  might  well  put  to  shame 
certain  of  our  own  savans,  who,  in  compliance  with  this  wretched 
jabber  of  the  school  at  Konigsberg,  now  speak  of  both  these  ele- 
ments as  having  no  valid  significancy  in  themselves,  but  as  being 
mere  products  of  idealism,  or  forms  of  human  thought.  In  the 
immediate  successors  of  Kant  we  can  easily  forgive  this  extrava- 
gance, as  Fichte,  of  whom  we  should  not  have  expected,  for  one 
moment,  that  the  "  common  sense"  philosophy  would  ever  lead 
him  to  give  up  one  iota  of  his  transcendentalism.  But  although 
common  sense  was  utterly  powerless  against  it,  yet  upon  one  oc- 
casion it  had  nearly  given  way,  when  brought  into  serious  conflict 


morell's  modern  philosophy.  479 

with  a  not  uncommon  sensibility  ;  for  Fichte,  as  we  were  pleased 
to  find,  though  a  metaphysician,  and  in  the  most  abstract  form, 
so  far  proved  himself  to  be  a  possessor  of  our  own  concrete  hu- 
manity, as  to  fall  in  love.  But  circumstances  forced  him  to  quit 
for  a  season  the  lady  of  his  affections  ;  and,  when  at  the  distance 
of  300  miles,  German  miles  too,  he  thus  writes  to  her  : — "  Again 
left  to  myself,  to  my  solitude,  to  my  own  thoughts,  my  soul  flies 
directly  to  your  presence.  How  is  this  ?  It  is  but  three  days 
since  I  have  seen  you,  and  I  must  often  be  absent  from  you  for  a 
longer  period  than  that.  Distance  is  but  distance,  and  I  am 
equally  separated  from  you  in  Flaach  or  in  Zurich.  But  how 
comes  it  that  this  absence  has  seemed  to  me  longer  than  usual, 
that  my  heart  longs  more  earnestly  to  be  with  you,  that  I  imagine 
I  have  not  seen  you  for  a  week  ?  Have  I  philosophized  falsely 
of  late  about  distance  ?  Oh,  that  our  feelings  must  still  contradict 
the  firmest  conclusions  of  our  reason  !"  Mr.  Morell  deprecates 
what  he  calls  the  ignoble  application  of  ridicule  to  philosophy ; 
yet  we  should  not  be  sorry  if,  with  the  possession  of  such  rich 
materials  for  the  exposure  of  that  intellectual  Quixotism  into 
which  so  many  minds  in  Germany  and  elsewhere  are  now  run- 
ning wild,  some  one  having  the  talents  of  Butler  or  Cervantes 
were  to  arise,  and  banish  this  grotesque  and  outrageous  folly  from 
the  face  of  the  earth. 

Were  it  confined  to  Germany,  we  should  have  more  toleration 
for  it.  But  it  is  now  making  frequent  inroads  within  our  own 
borders  ;  and  we  are  grieved  to  find  that  Mr.  Whewell  expresses 
himself  as  carried  by  the  prestige  of  the  German  philosophy  and 
its  outlandish  nomenclature.  We  are  not  even  sure  if  Sir  John 
Herschell  be  altogether  free  from  it.  We  shall  exceedingly  regret 
if  the  manly  English  sense  of  these  great  masters  in  physical  sci- 
ence shall  prove  to  have  been  in  the  least  vitiated  by  this  admix- 
ture from  abroad.  In  the  face  of  their  high  authority,  we  shall 
persist  in  regarding  the  whole  of  the  intermediate  space  between 
ourselves  and  the  planet  Uranus  as  an  objective  reality  ;  and  when 
we  read  of  this  planet  "  trembling  along  the  line  of  their  analysis," 
we  shall  look  still  further  off,  or  still  more  objectively,  to  the  space 
that  is  beyond  it,  nay,  and  shall  infer,  with  all  confidence,  that  there 
must  be  a  force  outside  which  is  disturbing  its  movements.  We 
are  persuaded  that  common  sense  prevailed,  and  their  metaphy- 
sics were  for  a  time  forgotten,  when  in  the  glorious  discovery  of 
Le  Verrier,  they  beheld  the  verification  both  of  an  objective  space 
and  an  objective  causality. 

Altogether  it  is  a  wondrous  exhibition,  and  proves  most  strik- 
ingly that  high  mental  power  is  no  guarantee  against  outrageous 
error,  when  one  looks  to  the  very  opposite  effects  which  the  con- 
templation of  space  and  time  had  on  two  such  minds  as  those 
of  Immanuel  Kant  and  Dr.  Samuel  Clarke.  The  latter  not 
only  ascribed  existence  to  these  two  elements,  but  an  existence 


480  morell's  modern  philosophy. 

of  a  much  higher  character,  than  to  the  contingent  and  variable 
objects  which  compose  our  universe — as  self-existence,  necessary 
existence,  an  existence  of  which  it  was  not  only  impossible  to  con- 
ceive the  opposite,  but  of  which  it  was  impossible  that  the  oppo- 
site could  be — on  which  attributes  it  was,  that  he  reared  his  fa- 
mous a  priori  arguments  for  the  being  of  a  God.  Kant,  on  the 
other  hand,  while  he  admitted  the  reality  in  some  sort  of  a  phe- 
nomenal world,  made  the  very  intensity  of  our  belief  in  space  and 
time  his  argument,  not  for  going  outward  or  objectively  on  the 
things  believed,  but  for  turning  inward  on  the  subjective  mind, 
and  viewed  the  fixed  and  ineradicable  convictions  which  have 
been  planted  there  in  no  other  light  than  as  the  necessary  laws 
or  forms  of  human  thought.  Strange  that  in  very  proportion  to 
the  strength  of  our  belief,  must  the  object  believed  be  all  the  more 
regarded  as  a  nullity,  or  as  having  no  other  existence  than  in  a 
region  of  idealism.  No  one  can  question  the  transcendent  force 
of  intellect  in  Kant ;  but  these  aberrations  of  his  remind  us  of  the 
Scripture  saying — "  If  the  light  that  is  in  thee  be  darkness,  how 
great  is  that  darkness  !"  Neither  can  we  deny  that  both  Kant 
and  Samuel  Clarke  are  men  of  far  more  gigantic  stature  than  our 
own  Dr.  Reid,  who,  nevertheless,  in  virtue  of  his  calm,  and  sober, 
and  reflective  judgment,  with  no  higher  pretensions  than  to  the 
common  sense  which  is  diffused  among  all  men,  had  a  clearer  dis- 
cernment than  either  of  them,  both  of  the  laws  and  limits  of  the 
human  faculties.  It  holds  true  in  the  things  of  science,  as  well  as 
the  things  of  sacredness,  that  many  things  are  hid  from  the  wise 
and  the  prudent,  which  are  revealed  unto  babes. 

Yet  Kant,  as  if  sensible  of  his  errors,  by  what  Cousin  terms  a 
noble  inconsistency  (inconsequence)  did  much  to  repair  them. 
For  example,  he  conjured  up  the  Practical  Reason,  that  by 
means,  though  it  must  be  confessed,  of  a  clumsy  and  ill-assorted 
apparatus,  he  might  compensate  for,  or  rectify  the  dangerous  con- 
clusions of  the  Pure  Reason.  And  again,  as  if  to  caution  his  suc- 
cessors against  any  wild  excursion  into  the  regions  of  the  imagi- 
native and  the  ideal,  do  we  meet  with  the  following  glorious 
passage,  of  which  we  know  not  whether  most  to  admire  the 
soundness  of  the  lesson,  or  the  exquisite  beauty  and  appropriate- 
ness of  the  image  which  he  employs  for  the  enforcement  of  it. 
It  is  the  rebuke  which  he  pronounces  on  the  impatience  of  reason, 
and  the  utter  vanity  of  all  its  ambitious  efforts,  when  it  seeks 
across  the  limits  of  observational  truth,  or  tries  to  expatiate 
beyond  the  domain  of  the  "  Quid  est"  They  wholly  misunder- 
stand Kant  who  think,  because  of  his  lofty  and  arduous  specula- 
tions, that  he  undervalues  the  findings  of  man  on  the  terra  ftrma 
of  our  sensible  world.  On  the  contrary,  he  avers  with  all  strenu- 
ousness,  that  human  knowledge  is  bounded  by  experience. 

"  The  reason,"  he  says,  "  because  of  its  reach  and  capacity,  and  misled  by 
the  evidences  which  it  finds  of  its  own  power,  can  see  no  limits  to  its  passion 


MORELL  S    MODERN    PHILOSOPHY.  481 

for  knowledge.  The  buoyant  dove,  when,  with  free  wing,  it  traverses  the  air 
of  which  it  feels  the  resistance,  might  imagine  that  it  would  fly  still  better  in 
the  vacuum  beyond  ;  and  thus  Plato  forgets  and  looks  slightingly  on  the  sensible 
world,  because  it  imposes  upon  his  reason  such  narrow  limitations,  and  so  he 
ventures  himself  on  the  wings  of  his  ideas,  into  the  empty  space  of  the  pure 
understanding.  He  has  not  remarked  that,  in  spite  of  his  efforts,  he  makes  no 
progress,  for  he  has  no  point  of  support  on  which  to  uphold  him  in  his  attempt 
to  bear  the  understanding  out  of  its  natural  place.  Such  is  the  common  fa- 
tality of  reason,  when  it  enters  on  the  walk  of  speculation :  it  first  raises  a  su- 
perstructure as  quickly  as  it  can,  but  is  much  too  late  ere  it  takes  the  trouble 
of  ascertaining  whether  the  foundation  of  it  be  solid." — Critic  of  Pure  Reason. 

It  is  quite  refreshing  to  meet  with  those  places  in  Kant,  where 
he  emerges  into  the  daylight  of  common  sense,  and  speaks  just 
like  one  of  ourselves.  When  he  makes  his  transition  from  the 
Pure  to  the  Practical  Reason,  he  gives  forth  a  Natural  Theology 
most  strikingly  accordant  in  its  main  lessons  and  arguments  with 
those  which  have  been  delivered  for  years  to  large  and  successive 
numbers  of  those  youth  in  Scotland  who  are  in  training  for  the 
ministry  of  the  Gospel.  And  really,  after  reading  the  masterly 
criticisms  of  Cousin  upon  his  categories,  and  upon  the  arbitrary 
lines  of  demarcation  which  he  has  drawn  between  the  reason, 
and  the  understanding,  and  the  sensational  faculty,  one  is  tempted 
to  put  the  interrogation — What,  after  all,  in  mental  philosophy, 
of  the  useful  and  unquestionable,  has  Kant  said,  which  Dr.  Reid 
did  not  say  before  him  ? 

It  had  been  well  if  Kant  had  kept  closer  by  Dr.  Reid,  and  well 
too  had  the  followers  of  Kant  kept  closer  by  their  great  master. 
But,  after  having  conducted  them  to  the  verge  of  idealism,  he  in 
vain  lifted  his  warning  voice  against  their  proceeding  further, 
else  we  should  have  been  spared  the  extravagances  of  Fichte,  and 
Schelling,  and  Hegel.  We  cannot  now  afford  the  room  for  a 
single  sentence  on  any  of  their  systems ;  but  would  single  out 
that  of  Schelling  for  one  brief  remark  on  the  outrageous  absurd- 
ity of  the  product,  and  yet  notwithstanding,  the  honest  enthusiasm 
of  admiration  felt  even  by  the  highest  minds  for  the  marvellous 
talent,  and  withal,  lofty,  moral,  and  poetical  bearing  of  the  man. 
Morell  speaks  of  him  in  the  language  of  endearment ;  and  of  his 
philosophical  system,  as  that  "  by  which  the  name  of  Schelling 
is  destined  to  go  down  the  stream  of  time  to  the  latest  posterity." 
Nothing  can  exceed  the  devout  estimation  in  which  he  is  held  by 
Coleridge ;  but  the  most  remarkable  homage  ever  rendered  to 
him  was  by  the  French  Institute,  who  sat  in  formal  judgment  upon 
his  philosophy,  and  though  they  sanctioned  the  adverse  deliver- 
ance of  Mr.  Willm,  in  his  memoir  of  Schelling,  yet  by  their 
sustained  attention  to  his  Critique,  and  subsequent  publication  of 
it,  gave  ample  evidence  to  the  redeeming  qualities  of  a  specula- 
tion which  sets  all  common  sense  at  defiance,  and  bears  so 
glaringly  the  character  of  utter  wildness  upon  its  forehead. 
Nevertheless,  it  is  patiently  reasoned  out  by  the  memorialist,  most 

61 


482  morell's  modern  philosophy. 

respectfully  listened  to  by  the  most  illustrious  body  of  savant  in 
Europe,  and  at  last  pronounced  upon  in  the  following  terms: — 

"  This  doctrine  is  founded,  1.  Upon  an  illusion.  For  it  takes  the  process  of 
ordinary  generalization  for  an  absolute  law  of  reason ;  and  erects  the  principle 
at  which  generalization  stops,  into  the  real  and  essential  principle  of  things 
themselves. 

"  2.  Upon  a  paralogism.  For  it  confounds  the  order  of  knowledge  with  the 
order  of  existence. 

'•3.  Upon  an  exaggeration.  For  it  exaggerates  the  harmony  which  exists, 
or  which  we  naturally  affirm  between  our  intelligence  and  reality,  by  making 
it  an  identity,  and  attributing  to  reason  so  absolute  an  authority,  that  everything 
must  be  as  it  thinks,  from  the  moment  that  it  thinks  it. 

"  4.  Upon  an  hypothesis.  For  it  is  a  gratuitous  supposition  to  place  all 
truth  in  the  reason,  and  thus  to  equal  reason  with  God." — Vol.  ii.  pp.  128-129, 

We  refuse  to  admit  the  tabular  scheme  of  Schelling  into  our 
pages,  but  will  simply  refer  to  it  as  given  by  Morell,  vol.  ii.  p. 
106.  It  virtually  implies  that  the  power  of  thinking  is  tantamount 
to  the  power  of  creating,  and  thus  that  man  can  think  out  a  uni- 
verse, down  to  the  minutest  and  most  complicated  organisms  of 
the  animal  and  vegetable  kingdom.  It  is  the  most  characteristic 
specimen  we  have  met  with  of  what  the  Germans  call  a  construc- 
tion ;  and  nothing  serves  more  decisively  to  establish  the  national 
differences  of  mind  as  well  as  manners  than  the  simple  fact  of  its 
unbounded  popularity  for  a  season,  even  among  the  highest 
thinkers  of  one  great  country,  and  the  earnest  discussion  of  it 
by  the  proudest  intellects  of  another — while  speaking  generally 
and  collectively,  we  cannot  fancy  of  the  English  understanding, 
though  sublimed  to  the  uttermost,  as  bestowing  upon  it  the  enter- 
tainment of  one  serious  thought,  so  that  a  summary  rejection 
would  ensue  on  the  very  first  aspect  of  it.  We  have  certainly 
no  wish  that  it  should  be  otherwise ;  and  would  rather  that  all  the 
world  should  speak  of  us  still,  intellectually  as  well  as  geographi- 
cally, as  "  Britannos  toto  orbe  divisos,"  than  that  we  should  ever  in 
the  least  give  in  to  such  monstrous  idealism.  Yet  there  must  be  a 
charm  in  the  German  philosophy  lying  somewhere  else  than  in 
its  truth,  some  other  inspiration  than  in  the  articles  of  its  creed. 
The  gyrations  of  the  noble  bird  are  gazed  upon  with  delight  and 
wonder ;  but  when  it  gets  beyond  the  limits  of  our  sustaining 
atmosphere,  it  then,  as  Kant  hath  predicted,  is  precipitated  far  out 
of  sight,  among  the  depths  and  recesses  of  a  viewless  infinity. 

But  we  have  left  far  too  little  room  for  the  special  converse 
that  we  all  along  felt  desirous  of  holding  with  Mr.  Morell  him- 
self on  the  subject  of  theology. 

The  extract  already  given  by  us  in  our  Review,  from  Morell, 
vol.  i.,  pp.  239-240,  is  immediately  followed  up  by  the  two  para- 
graphs which  we  now  present  to  the  reader. 

"  Instead,  therefore,  of  entirely  separating  the  investigation  of  mental  from 
that  of  all  other  phenomena,  we  should  here  perceive  their  mutual  relations, 
and  learn  to  gaze  upon  the  universe  both  of  mind  and  matter  as  a  whole,  the 


MORELL  S    MODERN    PHILOSOPHY.  483 

one  harmonious  production  of  the  Infinite  Intelligence.  In  this  view  of  the 
case  we  should  contemplate  man  in  his  mysterious  connection  with  nature,  and 
nature  in  its  relation  to  humanity,  while  the  last  and  crowning  problem  would 
be  to  show  how  they  both  subsist  in  God.  A  system  embracing  this  sweep  of 
investigation,  might  be  termed  philosophy  in  its  highest  sense. 

"  Had  Reid  pointed  out  this  as  the  ultimate  tendency  of  metaphysical  re- 
search, we  believe  that  his  successors  could  have  built  upon  such  a  foundation 
a  noble  superstructure  of  speculative  philosophy  ;  but  having  discouraged  this 
attempt  in  the  outset,  his  successors  have  for  the  most  part  trodden  the  path  of 
mere  observation,  until  the  science  which  might  soar  to  the  very  noblest  efforts 
of  the  human  intellect,  and  strive  to  solve  the  great  problems  of  man,  the  uni- 
verse, and  their  Creator,  has  dwindled  down  almost  to  puerility  in  the  hands  of 
some  of  its  most  recent  advocates." — Vol.  i.  p.  241. 

It  is  obvious  that  our  author  here  contrasts  the  method  in  which 
Natural  Theology  has  been  presented  by  disciples  of  the  Scottish 
school,  since  the  days  of  Reid,  with  that  more  vigorous  and  pro- 
ductive method  in  which  he  thinks  it  ought  to  have  been  pre- 
sented.    Our  reply  at  present  must  necessarily  be  a  brief  one.* 

The  first  and  greatest  argument,  then,  of  our  Natural  Theology, 
is  identical  with  that  of  Kant's — the  felt  supremacy  of  conscience, 
which  we  have  long  deemed  the  most  influential  of  all  others  for 
upholding  the  faith  of  a  God  throughout  the  world.  It  is  true 
that  we  do  not  call  it  the  Categorical  Imperative,  or  place  it 
under  the  head  of  the  Practical  Reason,  in  contradistinction  to 
the  Pure  Reason  of  the  transcendental  philosophy.  It  is  substan- 
tially the  same  argument  notwithstanding,  and  couched  by  us  in 
surprisingly  coincident  language  with  that  of  Kant  and  his  com- 
mentators.— as  that  a  law  implies  a  lawgiver,  &c.  It  must  be 
admitted,  however,  that  we  view  it  as  an  a  posteriori  argument, 
by  which  we  pass  from  the  felt  experience  of  a  judge  within  the 
breast  to  the  inference  of  a  Judge  above  and  over  us,  who  planted 
it  there,  being  at  one  in  this  respect  with  Bishop  Butler,  who,  as 
from  the  regulator  in  a  watch  he  would  infer  not  only  a  maker 
for  it  but  that  his  purpose  in  so  making  it  was  that  it  should  move 
regularly, — so  from  the  conscience  in  a  man  did  he  infer  the 
design,  and  of  course  a  Designer,  that  man  should  walk  conscien- 
tiously. This  argument,  too,  we  bring  to  bear,  even  as  Kant  did, 
on  the  soul's  immortality — along  with  a  second  argument,  which 
he  also  employs,  grounded  on  the  boundless  aspirations  and 
capacities  of  the  human  spirit,  seeing  that  it  were  a  violent  anom- 
aly, as  being  an  exception  to  the  universal  law  of  adaptation 
which  runs  throughout  nature,  if  creatures  endowed  as  we  are, 
were  not  provided  with  a  state  of  conscious  existence  on  the  other 
side  of  death,  in  which  to  expatiate.  Such,  in  its  main  features, 
is  the  Natural  Theology  of  Kant,  and  such,  we  add,  is  the  Natu- 

*  In  truth,  we  could  not  do  full  justice  to  the  theme,  but  in  a  separate  article,  at  least 
half  as  long  as  the  present  one,  on  "The  Scottish  Natural  Theology,"  to  be  afterwards 
followed  up  by  another,  where,  with  express  reference  to  Strauss  anil  to  German  Ration- 
alism in  general,  we  should  like  to  give  forth  our  views  on  "  The  Christian  Theology  of 
Scotland." 


484  morell's  modern  philosophy. 

ral  Theology  of  Scotland,  in  which,  after  all,  Kant  felt  himself 
obliged  to  take  refuge,  when,  as  if  by  a  compensation  of  errors,  he 
conjured  up  what  he  calls  the  Practical  Reason,  to  repair  the  mis- 
chief, or  rather  the  else  irretrievable  ruin  which  his  Pure  Reason 
had  inflicted  on  the  cause  of  Theism. 

And  here  we  cannot  but  remark  the  vast  superiority,  as  it 
seems  to  us,  of  the  argument  from  conscience,  to  the  Cartesian 
argument  for  a  God,  even  though  advocated  by  Cousin,  and  on 
the  ground  too  of  its  being  an  argument  that  can  be  felt  and 
recognized  by  all  men.  This  last  and  most  precious  character- 
istic we  have  ever  regarded,  as  being,  par  excellence,  the  property 
of  the  argument  from  conscience,  this  universal  attribute  of 
humanity ;  but  that  the  other,  or  argument  from  contrast,  had  no 
pretensions  to  it.  This  latter  argument  proceeds  on  the  postulate 
that  each  idea  of  the  human  mind  suggests  its  opposite — as  the 
finite  suggestive  of  the  infinite,  the  conditioned  of  the  absolute, 
the  imperfect  of  the  perfect :  and  that  thus  every  human  being, 
conscious  as  he  must  be  of  his  own  limited  and  imperfect  nature, 
is  led,  by  a  necessary  law  of  human  thought,  to  the  conception 
of  an  infinite  and  all-perfect  God.  We  confess  of  this  argument, 
— with  its  additional  draught  upon  us,  that  the  very  conception 
of  such  a  Being  is,  in  itself,  the  conclusive  evidence  of  His  real- 
ity,— we  do  confess  to  the  very  slight  impression  which  it  makes 
upon  our  understanding.  Least  of  all  can  we  imagine  that  it 
should  have  any  prevalent  or  practical  effect  throughout  the  spe- 
cies at  large — and  this  though  enforced  by  all  the  talent  and  elo- 
quence of  Cousin,  along  with  an  inimitable  gracefulness  of  illus- 
tration, when  he  pictures  forth  in  some  exquisite  sentences  a  relig- 
ious peasant,  strongly  reminding  us  of  Cowper's  aged  female  in 
humble  but  happy  life,  with  just  and  elevated  faith  in  the  God  of 
the  whole  universe,  though  herself  "  never  heard  of  half  a  mile 
from  home." 

But  there  is  a  second  great  branch  of  argument  in  Natural 
Theology,  which,  though  of  far  less  powerful  effect  than  the 
former  on  human  consciences,  and  so  far  less  powerful  as  an  effi- 
cient either  of  religious  feelings  or  religious  convictions  in  the 
world,  is  the  one  on  which,  at  present,  we  have  most  to  say — it 
being  that  on  which  we  hold  an  adjustment  with  Mr.  Morell  to  be 
most  urgently  called  for.  We  mean  the  argument  for  a  God,  as 
based  on  the  phenomena  and  dispositions  of  the  material  world. 
This  argument  stands  in  somewhat  the  same  relation  to  the 
former,  that  the  External  do  to  the  Internal  Evidences  of  Christi- 
anity— the  strength  of  the  one  lying  in  the  credibility  of  those 
alleged  miracles  by  which  inroad  was  made  on  the  regularities 
of  nature,  and  of  the  other  or  greatly  more  influential  in  the  uni- 
versal manifestation  which  the  subject-matter  of  Christianity  is 
fitted  to  make  of  itself  to  the  consciences  of  men,  and  always  will 
make  when  these  consciences  are  earnest  and  alive  to  the  reali- 


MOR ELL'S    iMODERN    PHILOSOPHY.  48f) 

ties  of  the  question.  We  can  pursue  no  further  at  present  this 
general  analogy  between  the  Natural  and  the  Christian  Theology 
— only  adverting  to  their  common  resemblance,  in  that  each  has 
one  argument  by  which  to  obtain  a  hold  on  the  faith  of  humanity 
at  large ;  and  another,  more  appropriate  to  scientific  men,  and 
which,  if  not  powerful  enough  to  propitiate  their  attention  to  the 
theme,  is  at  least  powerful  and  strong  enough  to  condemn  their 
summary  rejection  of  it. 

But  a  disciple  of  the  German  philosophy  should,  as  much  as 
possible,  be  spoken  with  in  his  own  language.  "  Every  event  has 
a  cause."  This  we  readily  concede  to  Kant,  the  great  master 
of  that  philosophy  ;  nor  do  we  have  any  quarrel  either  with  the 
substance  or  nomenclature  of  what  he  tells  us,  when  he  says  that 
the  words  now  enunciated  form  a  synthetic  proposition  a  priori. 
But  while  it  is  a  priori  that  all  men  believe  in  a  cause  for  every 
event,  it  is  only  by  observation  a  posteriori  that  they  come  to 
know  what  the  cause  particular  is — though,  after  this,  and  by  a 
suggestion  a  priori,  they  always  look  for  the  same  effects  from 
the  same  causes,  as  well  as  infer  the  same  causes  from  the  same 
effects.  All  men  have  an  original  confidence  in  the  stability 
of  Nature's  successions ;  but  it  is  the  office  of  experience  to  find 
out  what  the  terms  of  the  succession  are — which,  when  once 
found  out,  enable  us  to  say  of  many  a  specific  event  what  the 
cause  of  it  actually  and  specifically  is ;  as,  that  heat  is  the  cause 
of  expansion,  impulse  of  motion,  injury  of  resentment,  and  so 
of  all  other  ascertained  sequences  both  in  the  outer  world  of  phe- 
nomena and  the  inner  world  of  sentiment  and  feeling.  These 
latter  propositions,  however,  belong  to  a  different  class  from  the 
one  that  has  just  been  defined  by  us.  They  are  the  synthetic 
propositions  a  posteriori  of  Kant. 

Even  M.  Comte  himself  would  allow  of  such  causal  succes- 
sions within  the  domain  of  his  own  positive  philosophy ;  or,  if  he 
would  object  to  their  being  viewed  as  causal,  he  would  at  least 
allow  of  such  a  regularity  in  the  order  of  succession,  as,  that  from 
the  prior  term  of  a  sequence,  one  might  legitimately  anticipate  its 
wonted  posterior,  or  from  the  posterior  might  infer  the  prior  term 
that  had  gone  before  it.  And  he  is  quite  right  when  he  makes  no 
difference  in  this  respect  between  the  phenomena  of  human  life  or 
conduct,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  phenomena  of  inert  matter,  upon 
the  other — insomuch,  that  in  either  of  these  departments  alike,  he 
would,  from  certain  given  antecedents,  anticipate  the  same  results, 
or,  from  certain  given  results,  would  infer  the  same  antecedents. 
For  example,  should  he  witness  the  putting  together  of  any  bene- 
ficial collocation,  as  a  watch,  under  process  of  construction  by 
human  hands,  where  part  was  added  and  adapted  to  part,  and  all 
at  length  to  the  effect  of  a  very  obvious  utility,  he  would  have  no 
difficulty,  when  he  next  saw  a  watch,  to  infer  a  watchmaker — an 
artificer  of  adequate  skill  and  power  for  the  production  of  such  a 


486  MORELI/S    MODERN    PHILOSOPHY. 

mechanism.  There  is  nothing  in  his  antipathy  to  the  doctrine 
<>f  final  causes  which  would  at  all  embarrass  or  restrain  him  from 
such  a  conclusion — arguing,  as  he  would  in  any  other  case  of  an 
observed  succession,  from  the  consequent,  a  watch,  to  the  ante- 
cedent, watchmaker  from  whom  it  had  sprung.  Nay,  though  he 
had  never  seen  a  watch  made,  he  might  still,  and  with  all  confi- 
dence, have  inferred  the  watchmaker — and  this  on  the  strength 
of  his  general  observation  of  the  way  in  which  such  things  are 
originated  :  And  so,  though  he  may  be  never  present  at  the  manu- 
facture of  a  coach,  or  a  ship,  or  a  house,  or  a  gun,  or  a  steam- 
engine,  he  would  still  most  rightfully  conclude  and  on  the  basis 
of  a  sufficient  experience,  that  a  designing  mind  and  a  designing 
hand  had  to  do  with  all  these  fabrications. 

Now,  this  very  conclusion,  against  which  a  disciple  of  Comte 
would  not  except  in  reasoning  on  the  origin  of  a  human  or  arti- 
ficial mechanism,  a  disciple  of  the  Scottish  school  would  regard  as 
equally  legitimate  and  right  when  reasoning  on  the  first  origin 
of  any  natural  mechanism.  Let  there  be  but  a  beneficial  collo- 
cation of  parts,  and  he  would  infer  that  the  hand  of  a  designer 
had  been  there — and  with  an  evidence  all  the  more  intense  in  pro- 
portion to  the  number  of  parts  or  of  independent  conditions  which 
entered  into  the  combination.  This  we  hold  to  be  the  great  a 
posteriori  argument  which  external  and  visible  nature  contributes 
to  the  evidence  for  a  God — grounded  not  on  the  existence,  and 
not  even  essentially  on  the  laws,  but  mainly  and  in  chief  strength 
on  the  dispositions  of  matter,  and  from  which  we  infer,  that  the 
present  economy  of  things,  with  its  goodly  arrangements — its 
endless  variety  of  manifold,  yet  all  most  beneficial  adaptations — 
arose  from  the  fiat  of  a  powerful  and  presiding  intelligence,  who 
willed  it  into  being. 

We  hold  that  this  argument  has  been  greatly  rectified  and 
improved,  and  put  into  form,  since  the  days  of  Dr.  Reid.  It  was 
a  mighty  disencumbrance  for  it  to  forego  all  the  obscure  and  un- 
satisfactory metaphysics  which  the  English  theists,  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  last  century,  grounded  on  the  mere  existence  of  matter 
— reasoning  from  its  entity  alone  to  the  entity  of  spirit,  and  fan- 
cying that  on  this  simple  step  they  had  found  their  way  to  the 
great  anterior  cause  which  gave  birth  to  all  things.  It  was  a 
further  concentration  of  strength  to  forbear  the  question  of  its 
eternity ;  and  instead  of  requiring  a  commencement  for  the  sub- 
stratum of  the  universe,  to  be  satisfied,  for  all  the  purposes  of  an 
effective  demonstration,  with  a  commencement  for  its  now  sub- 
sisting economy.  It  was  even  a  better  intellectual  tactics — a 
retirement  from  the  outworks  to  the  citadel  of  our  argument — 
when,  quitting  for  a  time  the  consideration  of  its  laws,  we  made 
our  single  appeal  to  the  dispositions  of  matter,  and  so  could  wield 
the  very  argument  by  which  we  reason  from  a  production  of 
human  art  to  a  human  artificer,  who  endows  not  matter  with  its 


morell's  moderx  philosophy.  487 

properties,  but  only  puts  his  materials  into  order  and  form.  The 
recent  discoveries  in  geology  have  not  only  cast  a  wondrous 
illustration  on  this  argument,  but  serve  mightily  to  confirm  it.  It 
is  when  new  systems  emerge  from  the  wreck  of  old  ones,  and 
from  the  ruins  of  a  former  catastrophe  there  is  built  up  another 
modern  habitation,  and  peopled  with  new  races  both  of  animals 
and  vegetables — it  is  then  that  we  demand  the  interposal  of  a 
God.  Whence  did  these  new  genera  and  species  come  into 
being  ?  Nature  gives  no  reply  to  this  question ;  and,  though  ran- 
sacked throughout  all  her  magazines,  the  secret  of  these  actual 
and  present,  and  altogether  new  organisms,  is  nowhere  to  be 
found.  These  two  doctrines,  the  all  but  universal  faith  of  natu- 
ralists, that  there  is  no  spontaneous  generation,  and  no  transmuta- 
tion of  the  species,  are  two  denials  in  fact,  of  nature's  sufficiency 
for  the  origination  of  our  races,  and  shut  us  up  unto  the  faith 
of  Nature's  God.  It  places  our  argument  on  firm  vantage-ground 
to  say,  that  were  all  the  arrangements  of  our  existing  Natural 
History  destroyed,  all  the  known  forces  of  our  existing  Natural 
Philosophy  could  not  replace  them. 

We  are  aware  of  the  altogether  contemptuous  regard  which 
transcendentalism  casts  upon  these  things.  Its  natural  habitat  is 
aloft,  whence  it  looks  down  with  utter  indifference  and  scorn  on 
all  that  takes  place  in  our  lower  world — whether  on  the  geology 
so  visibly  portrayed  before  our  eyes  on  the  face  of  the  globe  ;  or 
on  the  theology  that  would  deign  to  read  its  characters,  and 
bestow  so  much  as  one  thought  upon  its  movements.  We  can 
therefore  scarcely  expect  even  a  hearing  from  it,  when  we  tell 
of  our  own  satisfaction  in  the  overthrow  of  an  atheistical  sophism 
which  threatened  at  one  time  the  integrity  of  the  a  posteriori  ar- 
gument, and  so  put  the  whole  of  our  Scottish  school  on  their 
expedients  for  the  defence  of  it.  The  truth  is,  that  Hume's  argu- 
ment, grounded  on  his  allegation  that  the  world  is  a  singular 
effect,  always  seemed  to  the  metaphysicians  of  this  country  the 
most  formidable,  or  most  difficult  to  deal  with,  of  any  that  had 
ever  been  framed  on  this  side  of  Atheism — insomuch  that  both 
Reid  and  Stewart  betook  themselves  to  the  very  questionable 
expedient  of  inventing  a  new  principle  for  the  purpose  of  neutra- 
lizing it.  It  is  only  of  late  that  this  sophistry,  once  so  perplexing, 
and  so  inadequately  met,  has  been  effectually  disposed  of  in  an- 
other way  ;  and  the  Natural  Theology  of  Scotland,  represented 
by  our  author  as  dwindling  into  puerility,  now  stands  firm  on  the 
basis  of  vindicated  experience — alike  safe  from  the  attack  of  its 
deadliest  enemy,  and  independent  of  the  frail  supports  that  were 
rendered  by  friends  in  those  days  of  its  vaunted  manhood. 

We  expect  no  sympathy  with  this  vindication  at  the  hands  of 
the  transcendentalists.  The  very  name  of  experience  will  repel 
them  ;  nay,  create  the  keenest  repugnance  in  the  hearts  of  those 
who  have  vastly  greater  value  for  the  constructions  and  excogita- 


488  MORELI/S    MODERN    PHILOSOPHY. 

tions  of  a  German  system,  than  for  all  which  the  industry  of  man 
can  find,  or  his  eye  can  observe,  in  the  actual  constructions  of 
God's  own  universe. 

We  confess  that  our  chief  value  for  the  experimental  argument, 
is  because  of  its  special  adaptation  to  the  habitude  of  those  minds 
which  are  disciplined  in  the  methods  and  investigations  of  Physi- 
cal Science.  For  the  evidence  of  theology,  whether  Natural  or 
Revealed,  like  the  reasoning  of  Christianity's  greatest  apostle, 
has  in  it  something  for  all  men.*  It  is  an  evidence  which  can  be 
carried  even  within  the  domain  of  what  Comte  terms  his  positive 
philosophy,  and  can  there  challenge  from  the  sight  of  the  world 
his  belief  in  a  world-maker,  for  the  same  principle  on  which  from 
the  sight  of  a  watch  he  himself  would  believe  in  a  watch-maker. 
But  this  is  a  quarter  in  which  the  metaphysicians  of  the  continent, 
and  Morell  among  the  number  (Morel),  i.,  481-485),  will  tell  him 
that  no  evidence  for  a  God  is  to  be  found — not  at  least  till  the 
glorious  spectacle  of  Nature,  teeming  to  common  eyes  with  all 
the  indices  of  design  and  order,  shall  somehow  have  been  trans- 
formed and  sublimated  into  one  of  their  own  speculations.  Mean- 
while these  speculations  so  conflict  and  alternate  with  each  other 
— so  float  and  disappear  at  turns  in  the  whirlpool  of  debate — so 
pass  onward  from  hand  to  hand  in  successive  and  ever-shifting 
transmutations,  from  the  transcendentalism  of  Kant  to  the  idealism 
of  Fichte,  and  thence  to  the  still  loftier  em py realism  of  Schelling, 
and  thence  to  the  mysticism  of  Jacobi,  and  thence  to  the  nihilism 
of  Hegel — that  no  wonder  if  the  poor  man,  bewildered  and  lost 
in  the  turmoil  of  a  thousand  controversies  and  utterly  in  despair 
for  aught  like  settlement  or  repose,  should  have  been  tempted  to 
cast  the  whole  theme,  with  its  corollaries  or  cognate  doctrines  of 
an  immaterial  spirit  and  supernal  God  away  from  him.  One  can- 
not say  in  how  far  these  men  are  not  responsible  for  the  atheism 
of  the  boldest  and  one  of  the  most  powerful  thinkers  whom  France 
has  to  boast  of. 

But  we  confess  to  a  still  deeper  melancholy  in  our  view  of 
Humboldt — a  feeling  in  which  our  author  seems  to  share,  and 
this  because  of  the  utter  destitution  of  all  reference  to  the  Creator 
in  his  last  work  entitled  Kosmos  ;  or  if  he  do  advert  to  a  first 
cause,  it  is  to  a  primordial  necessity,  and  not  to  the  living  God. 
On  reading  his  treatise  some  months  previous  to  the  appearance 
of  MorelPs  book,  we  could  not  help  being  struck  with  the  total 
absence  of  any  allusion  to  the  world's  Author ;  but  what  we  felt 
as  most  instructive  of  all,  was  his  own  explanation  or  apology  for 
the  want  of  it — "  the  wholly  objective  tendency  of  his  disposition." 
From  other  passages  which  could  be  cited,  it  is  too  obvious  that 
he  looks  on  the  theology  of  his  subject  as  placed  at  a  distance 
well  nigh  impassable  from  the  subject  itself, — as  belonging  to  a 

*  1  Cor.  ix.,22. 


morell's  modern  philosophy.  489 

"  higher  class  of  ideas" — as  involving  him  in  "  the  mysterious  un- 
resolvable  problem  of  origin"  or  "  the  obscure  commencement  of 
the  history  of  origination" — as  requiring  the  consideration  of  "  ab- 
stract principles,  having  their  foundation  in  pure  reason  only  ;" 
and  upon  all  which  he  declines  aspiring  "  to  the  perilous  elevation 
of  a  purely  rational  science  of  nature,"  or  adventuring  on  "  those 
depths  of  a  purely  speculative  philosophy."  Altogether,  the  im- 
pression on  Humboldt's  mind  must  be  that  theology  is  wrapt  in 
transcendentalism  ;  and  that  he  must  traverse  the  mighty  gulf  of 
separation  between  the  objective  and  the  subjective  ere  he  can 
come  into  contact  with  it.  Now,  in  point  of  fact,  if  he  do  not 
need  to  make  this  transition  in  passing  from  the  view  of  a  coach 
to  the  inference  of  a  coachmaker,  he  has  little  need  to  make  it 
in  passing  from  the  view  of  those  new  organisms  which  each  new 
and  successive  formation  in  geology  presents  to  his  notice,  to  the 
inference  of  a  designing  Intelligence  who  called  them  into  being. 
It  is  true  that  we  cannot  make  either  the  one  inference  or  the 
other,  without  one  of  Kant's  primitive  judgments  coming  into 
play.  But  the  judgment  comes  spontaneously ;  and  in  the  act 
of  forming  it  there  is  no  necessity  for  lifting  one's  eyes  from  the 
outward  object  of  contemplation.  But  herein  lies  the  subtle  allu- 
sion which  operates  both  on  Humboldt's  imagination,  and  on  that 
of  the  metaphysicians  themselves  who  have  done  so  much  to  per- 
vert the  mind  of  Germany.  He  counts  it  not  enough  that  the 
primitive  or  proximate  judgment  has  been  evoked,  which  of  itself, 
though  but  one  step,  is  a  sufficient  introduction  to  the  theology  of 
the  subject ;  but  that  over  and  above  this,  he  must  entertain  Kant's 
judgment  of  this  judgment,  or  his  own  reflex  judgment  thereupon. 
Now  this  following  up  of  the  direct  by  the  reflex  process  is  wholly 
uncalled  for,  but  such  is  the  constant  subjective  habit  of  these 
singular  people  ;  and  it  is  this  which  explains,  while  it  vindicates 
the  saying  of  Goethe  in  regard  to  his  own  countrymen,  "  that  the 
Germans  have  the  gift  of  rendering  the  sciences  inaccessible." 
It  is  a  cruel  result  when  theology  is  thus  made  inaccessible.  All 
look  back  with  generous  and  just  indignation  to  the  decretals  of 
that  ecclesiastical  counsel  which  compelled  Galileo  to  renounce 
the  true  philosophy.  We  have  scarcely  less  patience  for  those 
decretals  of  the  metaphysical  school,  which,  acting  with  the  spell 
of  its  authority  on  such  a  mind  as  that  of  Humboldt,  should  have 
deceived  him  into  the  notion  that  the  true  theology  is  beyond  the 
reach  of  his  attainment ;  or  that  he  stands  hopelessly  and  forever 
debarred  from  the  apprehension  of  that  God  over  the  glories  of 
whose  creation  he  so  luxuriates,  and  this  because  Nature  has  with- 
held from  him  all  talent  and  all  tendency  for  the  subjective  ! 

There  is  here  a  grievous  misdirection  of  the  view  from  that 
place  where  lies  the  main  strength  of  our  argument  and  of  our 
cause — a  misdirection  into  which  Mr.  Morell  has  himself  fallen. 
For  example,  our  infertnee  from  the  beneficial  collocations  of 

62 


490  morell's  modern  philosophy'. 

matter  to  the  wisdom  of  Him  who  ordained  them,  is  of  far  too 
plain  and  puerile  a  character  to  be  at  all  worthy  of  his  entertain- 
ment. And  what  else  would  he  substitute  in  its  place  ?  How  is 
it  that  he  would  have  us  take  flight  from  this  humble  path  of  ob- 
servation, and  "  soar  to  the  very  noblest  efforts  of  the  human  in- 
tellect, and  strive  to  solve  the  great  problems  of  man,  the  universe, 
and  their  Creator  ?"  Not,  it  would  appear,  from  aught  in  the 
character  and  properties  of  man,  but  from  the  essence  of  man ; 
and  not  from  the  dispositions  of  the  universe,  but  from  what  be- 
longs to  the  essence  of  the  universe  ;  and  not  from  the  attributes 
of  God,  as  evinced  by  His  works  or  in  His  ways,  but  still  from  the 
essence  of  God.  We  have  really  been  making  it  a  formal  and 
express  effort,  to  ascertain  the  starting  point  of  his  ontology,  or 
"  loftier  region  of  thought,"  over  which  he  longs  to  expatiate,  and 
to  scale  the  heights  of  the  Prima  Philosophia  ;  and  all  that  we 
can  find,  all  that  he  himself  alleges,  is  but  these  three  substrata  to 
come  and  go  upon.  Now,  though  by  a  fundamental  law  of  the 
human  understanding  we  believe  in  a  substratum  for  the  Deity,  a 
substratum  for  man,  a  substratum  for  the  universe,  we  cannot,  for 
our  lives,  imagine  what  more  we  know  of  them  than  that  barely 
they  exist ;  nor  how  it  is  that  these  three  bare  entities  can  be 
turned,  like  geometrical  definitions,  into  the  germs  of  reasoning 
and  endless  discovery.  We  fear  that  they  will  be  of  as  little 
avail  for  progress  as  the  abstract  ideas  of  Plato.  However,  we 
again  say,  let  him  try  ;  but  would  further  bid  our  aspiring  young 
philosopher  "  remember  Kant's  dove,'"  a  saying  as  brief  and  sen- 
tentious, and  which  it  were  wholesome  and  well  should  it  become 
as  memorable,  as  "  remember  Lot's  wife."  We  should  like  that 
our  sanguine  and  adventurous  author  had  it  inwoven  on  the  phy- 
lactery of  his  garment,  even  as  it  ought  to  be  on  every  German 
toga,  and  inscribed  on  the  portico  of  every  German  university. 
It  might  restrain  many  an  Ixionic  flight,  whereof  it  is  certain  that 
hitherto  the  monuments  or  memorials  have  been  far  less  durable 
than  a  pillar  of  salt — a  wreath  of  attenuated  vapor  too  impalpable 
for  vision.  But  it  is  too  obvious  of  Mr.  Morell,  that  he  has  caught 
the  infection,  and  that  he  would  fain  take  wing  above  the  terra 
firma  of  experience,  nay,  beyond  the  limits  of  its  encompass- 
ing atmosphere.  We  do  hope  that  he  will  not  venture  too 
far.  There  is  much  of  what  is  good  in  him  ;  nor  are  we  without 
the  expectation  that,  like  the  bird  of  Noah,  we  shall  soon  have  to 
welcome  him  back  again  to  the  ark  in  safety — to  the  common- 
sense  philosophy  and  puerile  theology  of  Scotland. 

And  here,  for  one  moment,  we  would  address  ourselves  to  the 
seriousness  of  Mr.  Morell.  That  theology  of  which  at  present 
he  has  such  fond  imaginations,  is  after  all  but  a  theology  in  pros- 
pect. Those  inward  mysteries  of  which  he  speaks,  the  mysteries 
of  being,  and  to  which  he  looks  so  wistfully,  with  the  view  of 
seizing  on  them,  have  not  yet  come  witkin  his  grasp.     And  yet 


morell's  modern  philosophy.  491 

he  tells  us  that  Natural  Theology  is  the  basis  of  the  Revealed,  or 
the  basis  of  Christianity.  Which,  then,  of  the  natural  theologies 
is  it  that  he  means  ?  Is  it  the  Natural  Theology  which  has  been 
already  realized,  and  of  which  he  tells  us  that  it  is  comparatively 
worthless  1  Or  is  it  the  Natural  Theology  still  in  reserve,  and 
for  the  completion  of  which  he  is  now  looking  forward  to  the  spi- 
ritual philosophy  of  Paris's  Eclectic  School  ?  Meanwhile,  what 
are  we  to  do  with  our  Christianity  ?  Must  we  keep  it  in  abey- 
ance, as  being  a  superstructure  without  foundation,  till  the  great 
master  whom  he  most  reveres  shall  have  given  full  proof  of  the 
inspiration  which  he  claims,  and  of  which  he  affirms,  that  it  and 
no  other  was  the  inspiration  either  of  prophets  in  the  Old,  or  apos- 
tles in  the  New  Testament  ? 

Had  it  not  been  for  the  danger  which  lies  along  the  confines 
of  Mr.  Morell's  speculations  (undesigned  by  himself  we  have  no 
doubt),  we  should  not  have  meddled  with  him.  But  there  is  a 
full  call  to  interpose  when  the  author  of  a  book  so  fitted  to  fasci- 
nate, and  when  wrong  to  mislead,  tells  the  numerous  youth  of  our 
colleges  that  hitherto  they  have  only  been  dealing  with  superficial- 
ities, and  have  never  yet  found  so  much  as  a  door  of  entry  into 
the  recesses  and  profundities  of  his  inner  world.  Let  them  be 
assured,  nevertheless,  that  with  the  voice  of  that  conscience  which 
speaks  so  powerfully  in  all  bosoms,  and  those  glories  of  a  universe 
patent  to  every  eye,  and  which  shine  so  palpably  around  them ; 
and  let  them  further  be  assured,  that  in  the  Bible,  that  wondrous 
monument  of  past  ages,  with  its  firm  authentic  place  in  history, 
and  its  telling  power  on  men's  hearts — though  unskilled  to  the 
end  of  their  days  in  the  idealism  of  Germany,  and  in  all  its  cate- 
gories— let  them  be  nevertheless  assured,  in  the  possession  of 
vouchers  so  ample  as  these,  that  both  their  Natural  and  their 
Christian  theology  are  safe. 

But,  in  good  truth,  he  is  egregiously  wrong,  when  he  speaks  of 
Natural  Theology  being  the  basis  of  Christianity,  in  the  same  way 
that  the  foundation  to  a  house  is  of  its  superstructure,  or  a  premise 
in  argument  is  of  its  conclusion.  He  utterly  mistakes  the  law 
and  nature  of  this  succession.  It  is  true  that  Natural  Theology 
comes  before  Christianity,  not  syllogistically,  however,  but  histor- 
ically, not  in  the  order  of  demonstration,  but  in  the  order  of  hu- 
man sentiment  and  feeling.  The  one  precedes  the  other  just  as 
the  sufferings  and  anxieties  of  distress  precede  the  inquiry  after 
relief,  and  (hen  the  actual  finding  of  its  efficacy.  It  is  not,  how- 
ever, the  felt  disease  which  points  to  the  remedy ;  but  the  remedy 
is  offered  to  the  disease,  and  gives  in  itself  the  proof  of  its  own 
virtues  to  all  who  make  use  of  it.  In  plainer  language,  the  mat- 
ter proceeds  thus  :  The  theology  of  nature  is  the  theology  of 
conscience  ;  and  conscience  tells  every  possessor  of  it,  if  not  the 
certainty,  at  least  the  probability  of  a  God.  And  this  probability 
is  enough  to  set  men  agoing  :  for,  as  Butler  says  with  deep  and 


492  MORELl/s    MODERN    PHILOSOPHY. 

eminently  practical  sagacity,  probability  is  the  guide  of  life.  And 
so  the  sense  of  moral  deficiency,  the  unfailing  sense  of  every 
earnest  spirit,  will,  without  any  nice  argumentative  computation, 
suggest  the  instant  feeling  of  at  least  a  probable  guilt,  a  probable 
God,  and  a  probable  vengeance  at  His  hands, — enough  to  set  the 
whole  machinery  of  human  interests,  and  fears,  and  disquietudes, 
into  busy  operation.  It  is  in  the  midst  of  such  agitations  and  do- 
ings that  Christianity  offers  itself  to  the  notice  of  an  inquirer  ;  and 
for  the  tens  or  twenties  who  may  seek  after  its  literary  and  his- 
torical evidence,  there  will  at  least  be  thousands  who  fasten  their 
intent  regards  upon  its  subject  matter ;  and  who,  as  the  fruit  of 
their  moral  earnestness  and  prayers,  will  be  made  to  behold  its 
divine  adaptation  to  the  exigencies  of  their  state,  and  so  to  close 
with  it  on  the  strength  of  those  credentials  which  are  properly 
and  independently  its  own.  At  the  earlier  stage  of  this  deeply 
interesting  process,  this  moral  history  of  the  spirit,  we  can  figure 
to  ourselves  the  peasant  so  beautifully  sketched  by  Cousin,  but  at 
length  transformed  at  a  later  stage,  the  stage  of  her  confirmed 
Christianity,  into  the  peasant  of  Cowper — the  subject  of  an  inspi- 
ration different  from  that  of  our  French  philosopher,  but  which 
we  are  not  unhopeful,  and  pray  God  that  he  may  yet  experience, 
when  the  Bible,  making  known  to  him  its  marvellous  revelations 
into  the  psychology  of  our  nature,  will  draw  from  him  the  ac- 
knowledgment that  verily  this  book  tells  us  all  which  is  in  our 
hearts,  and  verily  God  is  in  it  of  a  truth.* 

The  most  grievously  wrong  passage  of  our  author's  work,  and 
by  which  he  unknowingly  has  given  the  greatest  pain  to  many  of 
his  readers,  is  his  Critique  on  Dr.  Abercromby — a  man  of  far 
higher  and  holier  aim  than  to  create  for  himself  a  name  in  philos- 
ophy ;  and  whose  writings,  by  which  though  dead  he  yet  speak- 
eth,  better  than  all  Greek  and  all  Roman  fame,  are  of  a  character 
so  pure  and  heavenly,  and  withal  so  humble,  that  the  ashes  of 
their  truly  estimable  author,  undisturbed  by  the  hand  of  rude 
and  unsparing  violence,  should  have  been  suffered  to  repose  in 
peace. 

And  though  less  in  fault,  he  is  scarcely  less  in  error,  when  he 
fastens  the  charge  of  mysticism  on  Dr.  Wardlow,  one  of  the  clear- 
est and  most  logical  writers  in  our  day.  The  mistake  into  which 
he  falls  here  is  somewhat  analogous  to  that  which  he  commits 
when  speaking  of  Natural  Theology  as  the  basis  of  Christianity, 
and  only  requires  to  be  met  by  an  analogous  rectification.  It  fol- 
lows not  that  a  perfect  system  of  ethics  is  discoverable  by  man, 
although  he  might  be  abundantly  capable  of  recognizing  its  ex- 
cellence and  truth,  when  brought  to  his  view  by  a  revelation  ab 
extra.  Had  there  been  an  utter  extinction  both  of  conscience 
and  reason  in  our  species,  we  should  have  been  beyond  the  pale 
of  all  moral  reckoning.     But  there  might  be  enough  in  man  to 

*  1  Cor.  xiv.,  25. 


morell's  modern  philosophy.  493 

make  him  responsible  for  the  attention  which  he  gives  to  Chris- 
tianity, and  yet  not  enough  to  make  him  independent  of  its  dis- 
closures— insomuch  that  without  a  Gospel,  both  its  informations 
and  its  lessons  might  have  remained  hopelessly  and  forever  be- 
yond the  reach  of  his  attainment.  And  this  distinction  between 
the  two  faculties  of  discovery  and  discernment  is  not  peculiar  to 
the  subject  of  Theology,  but  is  exemplified  in  all  the  sciences. 

Mr.  Morell,  with  much  to  commend  and  much  to  be  grateful 
for,  in  that  one  so  conversant  as  he  is  in  the  philosophy  of  the  conti- 
nent, should  nevertheless  lift  so  intrepid  and  uniform  a  testimony  on 
the  side  of  Christianity — has  yet  been  somewhat  unfortunate  in  sev- 
eral of  his  allusions  both  to  Theology  at  large,  and  to  certain  of  its 
doctrines.  Charles  Fox  once  said  of  a  parliamentary  acquaint- 
ance who  had  much  of  the  style  and  manner  of  cadence  of  oratory, 
yet  without  force  and  without  substance,  that  he  spoke  to  the  tune 
of  a  good  speech.  There  is  one  lengthened  passage  in  Mr.  Mo- 
rell's work,  of  which  we  should  say  throughout,  that  he  reasoned 
to  the  tune  of  a  good  argument.  We  refer  to  his  discussion  on 
the  question  of  Liberty  and  Necessity.  Instead  of  taking  the  main 
elements  of  his  ratiocination  from  the  mental  phenomena,  or  from 
mind  itself,  which  is  the  truly  proper  subject  of  this  question,  he 
draws  chiefly,  not  on  the  philosophy  of  the  subject,  but  on  the  his- 
tory of  its  philosophy,  and  makes  the  determination  turn  on  the 
respective  merits  of  the  schools  which  took  their  several  parts  in 
this  controversy.  Now  this  is  greatly  too  wholesale  a  style  of 
argumentation  for  such  a  topic  of  inquiry  ;  and,  if  we  may  so 
express  it,  the  elements  made  use  of  are  of  much  too  bulky  and 
aggregate  a  description  to  have  that  analytic  force  which  is  so 
indispensable  to  a  sound  and  thorough  solution  on  the  matter  at 
issue.  He  keeps  back  from  us  the  philosophy  of  the  question,  and 
gives  us  history  instead.  Really  it  were  investing  the  historians 
of  philosophy  with  a  tremendous  power,  if  we  must  take  their 
dogmata  as  well  as  their  information — and  this  on  the  strength 
of  argument  built  up  of  historical  materials  alone.  At  this  rate 
M.  Comte  has  just  as  good  a  right  to  found  an  atheism  on  what 
he  tells  us  of  the  Eras,  the  theological  and  metaphysical  and  posi- 
tive eras,  as  Mr.  Morell  has  to  found  the  doctrine  of  contingency 
on  what  he  tells  us  of  his  Schools.  Instead  of  the  slight  notice 
wherewith  in  half  a  sentence  he  dismisses  Edwards,  we  should 
have  liked  much  better  that  he  had  grappled  with  his  arguments. 
And  he  has  here  forgotten  to  let  us  know  that  Leibnitz,  though 
at  the  head  of  the  rational  or  spiritual  philosophy  which  he  so 
much  admires,  was  also  a  Necessarian.*     Nevertheless  we  must 

*  It  is  remarkable  that  Madame  de  Stael  lays  claim  to  Leibnitz  as  the  powerful  asser- 
ter  of  Liberty.  But  the  mistake,  if  mistake  it  be,  is  altogether  justifiable — for  if  both  he 
and  Edwards  were  better  understood,  it  would  be  found,  not  only  that  they  are  the  ad- 
vocates of  the  only  liberty  which  is  at  all  conceivable,  but  of  the  only  liberty  which  can 
sustain  all  the  activities  of  human  life,  as  well  as  all  the  enforcements  and  duties  of 
moral  obligation. 


49-1  morell's  modern-  philosophy. 

admit  of  the  whole  passage  on  which  we  are  now  animadvert- 
ing that  it  is  written  with  great  spirit  and  ability  ;  and  that  from 
the  beginning  to  the  end  of  it,  he  reasons  to  the  tune  of  a  good 
argument. 

But  we  must  now  take  leave  of  Mr.  Morell ;  and  we  desire  to 
do  it  with  the  most  perfect  good  humor,  as  we  do  with  unfeigned 
respect  for  his  great  talents,  and  gratitude  for  the  instruction  that 
we  have  received  from  him.  May  life  and  health  be  long  spared 
to  him  for  the  prosecution  of  his  high  labors,  and  for  the  fulfilment 
of  that  expectation  regarding  him  which  the  promise  of  this  his  first 
appearance  so  abundantly  warrants — as  the  accomplished  com- 
batant of  infidelity  in  its  new  and  coming  forms,  one  of  our  fore- 
most champions  in  the  sacred  cause  of  Truth  and  Righteousness. 

The  question  of  chief  concern  to  us  is — What  might  be  the 
probable  issues  of  the  growing  admiration  now  felt  for  the  philo- 
sophical systems  of  Germany?  And  first  it  is  of  prime  import- 
ance to  remark  that  much  of  the  admiration  thus  felt  for  them  is 
irrespective  of  their  truth.  For  example,  there  are  many  who 
can  speak,  and  with  honest  enthusiasm  too,  of  the  poetical  and 
comprehensive  scheme  of  Schelling,  yet  would  never  once  think 
of  admitting  it  into  their  creed.  And  so  we  read  of  Fichte  that 
"  his  singular  and  commanding  address,  his  fervid  eloquence,  the 
rich  profusion  of  his  thoughts  following  each  other  in  most  con- 
vincing sequences,  and  modelled  with  the  sharpest  precision, 
astonished  and  delighted  his  hearers."  Now  one  can  well  under- 
stand how  there  might  be  a  series  of  most  convincing  sequences, 
a  strict  logical  dependence  between  step  and  step  in  a  chain  of 
reasoning,  and  each  step  lighted  up  too  with  brilliant  fancy  and 
deepest  moral  earnestness — but  without  a  sustaining  basis  of 
truth  or  evidence  for  the  whole.  Yet  though  wanting  this,  there 
might  still  be  a  glorious  symphony  for  the  eye  to  gaze  upon. 
And  accordingly  in  the  University  of  Jena,  Fichte  carried  all 
before  him.  The  philosophy  of  his  predecessor,  Reinhold,  van- 
ished in  a  moment ;  and  nothing  was  heard  among  the  students 
but  the  cry  of  Ego  and  Non-ego  as  the  new  symbols  by  which 
the  old  ones  of  substance  and  form  were  displaced  and  super- 
seded. Even  Goethe,  whom  Fichte  had  before  done  homage  to 
as  the  Sophocles  of  Germany,  was  carried  along  on  the  tide 
of  the  then-prevailing  fascination,  though  he  still  demanded  a  sci- 
entific foundation  for  a  system  which  otherwise  had  so  much 
charmed  him.  There  is  much  to  be  gathered  from  the  single 
fact  of  that  intense  mutual  sympathy,  that  kindness  of  spirit, 
which  obtained  between  these  two,  living  at  that  time  in  the  same 
town,  and  in  the  occasional  enjoyment  of  each  other's  society — 
the  one  held  in  honor,  for  a  season  at  least,  as  the  greatest  phi- 
losopher; and  the  other,  of  more  enduring  and  universal  fame,  as 
the  greatest  poet  and  dramatist  of  Germany.  The  truth  is,  that 
the  work  of  each  in  its  own  way,  the  lectureship  of  the  one  and 


morell's  modern  philosophy.  495 

the  drama  of  the  other,  was  a  sort  of  theatrical  performance,  and 
hung  upon  with  equal,  and  very  much  with  kindred  delight,  by 
the  thousands  who  listened  to  them.  He  who  dwelt  in  the 
romance  of  sentiment  was  not  further  removed  from  the  realities 
of  human  life,  than  he  who  dwelt  in  the  romance  of  science  was 
from  the  realities  of  truth  and  nature.  Yet  both  were  most  won- 
derfully inspiring  and  soul-elevating  romances,  notwithstanding. 
An  excessive  love  of  the  fictitious,  whether  as  indulged  in  the  peru- 
sal of  ordinary  or  philosophical  novels,  might  be  alike  injurious  to 
the  experimental  wisdom  of  common  life,  and  to  the  requisite 
habitudes  of  thought  for  the  acquirement  of  a  sound  and  stable 
philosophy.  Yet  we  are  not  prepared  to  say  that  the  occasional 
recreation  of  a  novel,  with  the  full  sense  of  its  being  a  pure  inven- 
tion and  nothing  more,  will  mislead  a  general  reader  from  the 
prudentials  or  the  proprieties  of  our  actual  and  every-day  world ; 
nor  are  we  prepared  to  say  that  the  occasional  study  of  a  Ger- 
man metaphysician,  with  the  full  sense  of  his  being  a  baseless 
speculator  and  nothing  more,  will  mislead  the  votary  of  science 
from  the  firm  pathway  to  its  best  and  highest  discoveries.  Nay, 
we  are  not  sure  but  that  both  might  turn  out  to  be  improving  and 
beneficial  exercises — for  that,  as  a  novel  on  the  one  hand  might, 
better  than  the  prosaic  virtues  of  familiar  and  home-bred  experi- 
ence, inspire  a  purer  and  nobler  style  of  sentiment ;  so  a  specula- 
tion on  the  other,  however  groundless  and  unsubstantial  in  itself, 
might  nevertheless  abound  in  such  specimens  of  logic,  and  pro- 
fundity, and  marvellous  discernment  into  the  inner  mysteries  of 
our  nature,  as  both  mightily  to  strengthen  the  mental  faculties, 
and  elevate  the  aims  of  science.  We  do  not  want  to  speak 
lightly  of  German  transcendentalism,  and  far  less  of  its  numerous 
admirers.  On  the  contrary,  we  view  their  passion  for  it  with  the 
same  respect  that  we  should  a  very  high  species  of  amateurship. 
We  should  reckon  the  sitters  in  the  gallery,  whose  strongest 
relish  is  for  spectacles  or  the  theatricals  of  sight,  to  be  of  a  lower 
grade  than  the  sitters  in  the  pit  or  the  boxes,  whose  preference  is 
for  the  theatricals  of  sentiment.  But  greatly  above  both,  in  our 
estimation,  are  they  whose  higher  demand  is  for  what  may  be 
termed  the  theatricals  of  science ;  and  who,  though  they  do  not 
concern  themselves  much,  if  at  all,  about  the  truth  of  its  doctrines, 
yet  luxuriate  as  in  their  best-loved  element,  when  following  in  the 
march  of  its  demonstrations,  or  soaring  upwards  to  the  sublimest 
height  of  its  ideas.*     No  wonder  that  system  should  follow  after 

*  There  is  a  saying  of  Lessing's  which  serves  us  as  a  key  to  these  peculiarities  of  the 
German  character  and  habit.  "  If  the  Almighty  held  the  truth  in  one  hand,  and  the 
search  after  it  (la  verite,  et  la  recherche  de  la  verite)  in  another,  it  is  the  latter  that  I  should 
demand  of  him  in  preference."  We  have  all  heard  of  the  pleasures  of  the  chase,  and 
how  vastly  they  transcend  the  felt  value  of  the  game.  And  so  we  can  imagine  a  far 
greater  delight  in  the  pursuit  of  truth  than  in  the  acquisition  of  it.  It  is  a  high  order  of 
sport  certainly ;  but  with  all  respect  to  these  more  illustrious  sportsmen,  we  must  still  hold 
that  the  end  is  better  than  the  means,  the  landing-place  than  the  way  which  leads  to  it. 
and,  at  all  events,  that  the  truth  is  too  serious  and  sacred  a  thing  to  be  thus  sported  with' 


496  MORELLS    MODERN    PHILOSOPHY. 

system  for  the  entertainment  of  such  a  public,  just  as  drama  fol- 
lows after  drama  for  the  lovers  of  the  stage.  We  refuse  to 
mould  our  philosophy  according  to  the  systems  of  Germany  ;  but 
this  will  not  hinder  our  profoundest  veneration  for  that  public  in 
'  Germany,  whose  chief  enjoyment  lies  in  the  regalement  of  their 
imaginations  and  intellects,  in  the  play  and  exercise  of  the  highest 
faculties  of  our  nature.  In  serious  and  sober  earnest,  these  Ger- 
mans are  the  noblest  people  on  the  face  of  the  earth.  We  greatly 
prefer  their  taste  and  value  for  mental  products  to  the  gross  utili- 
tarianism of  our  own  land,  their  Leipsic  fair  of  books  to  our  cwn 
broad-cloths  and  bales  of  merchandise ;  and  it  makes  one's  old 
and  languid  blood  beat  with  the  pulse  of  other  days,  when  we 
read  of  their  students  "warm  from  the  schools  of  glory,"  shouting 
in  defiance  to  each  other  the  watch- word  of  their  respective  phi- 
losophies, and  almost  ready  to  fight  in  the  defence  of  them.  Alto- 
gether it  marks  them  as  a  loftier  and  more  ethereal  race  ;  and  we 
rejoice  that  there  should  still  be  one  country  in  the  world,  unin- 
fected by  the  breath  of  our  mercantile  society,  and  neither  over- 
run by  the  frivolities,  nor  debased  by  the  sordidness  of  other 
countries  and  other  climes. 

But  their  great  writers  have  other  fascinations  besides  those 
of  lofty  and  commanding  intellect.  Many  of  them  stand  forth  to 
us  clothed  in  the  virtues  of  antiquity.  Kant  has  been  well  desig- 
nated by  Cousin  as  the  Stoic  of  the  18th  century.  Of  Fichte  we 
are  told,  that  "  however  extravagant  we  may  consider  his  theoreti- 
cal science,  yet  it  is  impossible  to  read  his  noble  sentiments  on 
human  duty,  and  to  see  them  exemplified  in  his  own  eventful 
life,  without  feeling  our  moral  weakness  reproved,  and  our  moral 
strength  invigorated."  (Morell,  ii.  533), — so  that  the  resolute 
principle  ahd  high-minded  patriotism  of  the  man  may  go  far  with 
many  to  redeem  his  speculative  errors.  And  besides  that  noble- 
ness of  character  which  awakens  in  their  readers,  as  it  did  in 
their  pupils,  the  admiration  that  we  feel  for  highest  moral  chiv- 
alry, we  must  recollect  too  the  graces  often  of  their  oratory  and 
grandeur  of  their  imaginations.  In  the  language  of  Madame  de 
Stael,  "  we  find  nowhere  but  among  the  German  nations  the 
phenomenon  of  those  writers  who  consecrate  the  most  abstract 
metaphysics  to  the  defence  of  systems  the  most  exalted,  and  who 
hide  a  hvely  imagination  under  an  austere  logic."  It  is  not  to  be 
wondered  then,  that  with  this  combination  of  excellences,  they 
should  have  kindled  such  enthusiasm  in  the  hearts  of  many  who 
did  not  believe  in  the  dogmata  of  their  creeds,  perhaps  even  did 
not  understand,  or  at  least  did  not  care  for  them.  They  are 
proselytes,  not  to  the  philosophy  of  Germany,  but  to  the  living 
spirit  of  its  authors. 

Such,  and  such  precisely,  is  the  proselytism  of  Mr.  Carlyle. 
He  is  the  champion  of  Germanism,  not  in  its  letter,  but  in  its 
spirit.     We  could  not,  he  himself  could  not,  point  to  one  of  its 


MORELL  S    MODERN    PHILOSOPHY.  497 

dogmata  as  having  aught  to  do  with  the  inspiration  which  ani- 
mates  him,  and   which  he  has  given  forth    in  such  marvellous 
volumes  to  the  world.     Could  he,  for  example,  tell  us  what  the 
Articles  are,  and  whether  to  be  found  in  the  Confessions  of  Schel- 
ling,  or  Hegel,  or  Fichte,  or  even  Kant,  which  have  caused  the  fire 
to  burn  within  him  ?     They  are  not  creeds,  but  men  who  are  the 
objects  of  his  idolatry,  which,  under  the  name  of  hero-worship,  he 
renders  alike  to  those  of  most  opposite  opinions — as  to  Luther, 
and  Knox,  and  Cromwell  on  the  one  hand,  or  with  equal  venera- 
tion to  the  lofty  poets  and  transcendentalists  of  Germany  upon  the 
other.     He  is  a  lover  of  earnestness  more  than  a  lover  of  truth ; 
and  it  would  not  be  our  counteractive  at  least,  to  urge  that  he 
should  be  a  lover  of  truth  more  than  a  lover  of  earnestness.     We 
should  rather  say  that  both  are  best ;  and  would  our  island  only 
not  be  frightened  from  its  propriety  by  the  high-sounding  philoso- 
phy of  the  continent — neither  overborne  by  its  pretensions,  nor 
overawed  by  its  cabalistic  nomenclature — would  our  savans  and 
theologians  but  keep  unmoved  on  the  ground  of  common  sense, 
and  by  their  paramount  demand  for  evidence  at  every  step,  lay 
resolute  arrest  on  the  pruriencies  of  wanton  speculation — then 
while  they  rejected  all  that  was  unsubstantial  and  unsound  in  the 
dogmata  of  the  transcendental  school,  it   were  well  that  they 
imported  the  earnest  and  lofty  enthusiasm  of  its  disciples  into  the 
phlegmatic  universities  and  no  less  phlegmatic  churches  of  our 
land.     We  do  not  need  to  take  down  the  framework  of  our  exist- 
ing orthodoxy,  whether  in  theology  or  science.     All  we  require 
is  that  it  shall  become  an  animated  framework,  by  the  breath  of  a 
new  life  being  infused  into  it.     Ours  has  been  most  truly  de- 
nounced as  an  age  of  formulism :  But  to  mend  this  we  do  not 
need  to  exchange  our  formulas,  only  to  quicken  them  ;  nor  to  quit 
the  ground  of  our  own  common  sense  for  baseless  speculations ; 
nor  to  sidbstitute  the  Divine  Idea  of  Fichte  for  a  personal  and  liv- 
ing God ;    nor  to  adopt  for  our  Saviour  a  mere  imbodied  and 
allegorized  perfection,  and  give  up  the  actual  and  historical  Jesus 
Christ  of  the  New  Testament ;  nor,  finally,  to  go  in  quest  of  a  chi- 
merical ontology  in  upper  regions,  far  out  of  mortal  ken,  and  for 
visions  of  merest  fancy  there,  to  renounce  either  the  certainties  of 
our  own  palpable  and  peopled  world,  or  the  truths  which  He  who 
dwelleth  in  the  heavens  brought  down  from  heaven,  because  no 
man  can  ascend  into  heaven  or  tell  the  mysteries  and  glories  of  a 
place  which  he  never  entered.*     What  we  want  is  that  the  very 
system  of  doctrine  which  we  now  have  shall  come  to  us  not  in 
word  only  but  in  power.     As  things  stand  at  present,  our  creeds 
and  confessions  have  become  effete ;  and  the  Bible  a  dead  letter ; 
and  that  orthodoxy  which  was  at  one  time  the  glory,  by  wither- 
ing into  the  inert  and  the  lifeless,  is  now  the  shame  and  the 
reproach  of  all  our  Churches.     If  there  have  been  the  revival 

*  John  iii.  13. 
63 


498  MORET,l's    MODERN'    PHILOSOPHY. 

of  a  more  spiritual  philosophy  in  France  or  elsewhere,  it  might 
well  humble  us;  but  this  is  not  exactly  the  quarter  from  which 
we  should  expect  our  revival  to  come.  Prayer  could  bring  it 
down  from  above ;  and  it  is  only  thus  that  all  which  is  good 
in  Puritanism,  its  earnestness  without  its  extravagance,  its  faith 
without  its  contempt  for  philosophy,  its  high  and  heavenly-mind- 
edness  without  the  baser  admixture  of  its  worldly  politics  and  pas- 
sions— it  is  only  thus  that  the  Augustan  age  of  Christianity  in 
England,  an  age  which  Mr.  Carlyle  has  done  so  much  to  vindi- 
cate and  bring  to  light,  will  again  come  back  to  reform  our  State, 
and  to  bless  our  families.  But  we  must  not  withhold  one  part  at 
least  of  the  sketch  of  this  great  writer,  the  whole  being  one  of 
the  most  eloquent  and  masterly  that  is  presented  in  these  vol- 
umes. 

"  In  adverting  to  the  philosophy  of  England,  which  bears  the  German  stamp 
upon  it,  almost  every  one  will  immediately  recall  the  name  of  Thomas  Carlyle, 
a  name  which  stands  first  and  foremost  among  the  idealistic  writers  of  our  age. 
In  bringing  the  works  of  Carlyle  for  a  moment  before  our  attention,  we  shall  not 
give  any  opinion  respecting  his  theological  sentiments,  inasmuch  as  these  lie 
quite  beyond  our  beat,  and  have  to  be  judged  of  before  another  tribunal,  besides 
that  of  a  priori  reasoning.  Neither  do  we  wish  to  track  his  philosophical  views 
to  the  German  originals,  from  which  it  is  unquestionable  that  many  of  them 
have  sprung.  In  the  case  of  a  writer  so  powerful,  so  original,  and  so  full  of 
fire  and  genius,  it  is  a  thankless  task  at  best  to  assign  a  foreign  paternity  to  the 
burning  thoughts,  that  we  find  scattered  with  no  sparing  hand  almost  through 
every  page.  That  Mr.  Carlyle  has  learned  much  truth,  and  added  much  in- 
spiration to  the  force  of  his  genius,  from  the  literature  and  philosophy  of  Ger- 
many, he  would  himself  be  the  first  to  own ;  but  his  sentiments  have  not  been 
so  much  borrowed  from  these  sources,  as  inspired  from  them  :  he  has  used 
these  philosophers  as  his  familiar  companions,  rather  than  as  his  masters;  and 
instead  of  sitting  at  their  feet,  we  should  rather  say  '  that  his  soul  has  burned 
within  him,  as  he  has  walked  with  them  by  the  way.'  " — Vol.  ii.,  pp.  201,  202. 

"Much  would  we  say  of  Carlyle's  earnest  appeals  on  the  religion  of  the  age, 
were  we  not  afraid  to  venture  into  so  frightful,  and,  we  might  almost  say,  so 
dangerous  a  subject;  but  here,  too,  we  find  him  uttering  his  lamentations  or  his 
anathemas  against  the  hollow-hearted  formalism  of  Christendom,  against  the 
sham  worship  which  has  taken  the  place  of  the  undaunted  faith  and  burning 
love  of  the  prophets  and  apostles  of  God.  Without  distinction  of  name,  of  rank, 
or  of  popular  favor,  he  tears  the  mask  from  the  features  of  hypocrisy,  and  places 
again  and  again,  in  no  very  flattering  contrast,  the  pompous,  easy,  formal,  soul- 
less worship  that  is  seen  in  many  a  Christian  temple,  with  the  Hindoo,  the 
Mohammedan,  or  even  the  untutored  Indian,  who  sees  God  in  everything  he 
sees,  and  hears  him  in  everything  he  hears.  '  Will  you  ever  be  calling  heathen- 
ism a  lie,  worthy  of  damnation,  which  leads  its  devotee  to  consecrate,  all  upon 
its  altars,  and  with  a  wonder,  which  transcends  all  your  logic,  bows  before 
some  idol  of  nature ;  while  those  who,  with  sleepy  heads  and  lifeless  spirits, 
meet  in  a  framed  house,  and  go  over  a  different  act  of  forms,  are  the  only  elect 
of  God  ?  Clear  thy  mind  of  cant !  Does  not  God  look  at  the  heart  ?'  With  a 
truly  Platonic  contempt  for  the  material,  and  as  ardent  a  love  for  the  intellec- 
tual, the  ideal,  the  Divine,  our  author  wanders  through  all  the  regions  of  the 
habits,  customs,  laws,  and  institutions  of  our  day,  chastening  all  that  is  shallow 
and  insincere,  and  pleading  for  everything  that  is  earnest  and  true  in  human 
life."— Vol.  ii.,  pp.  204-206. 

It  is  obvious  from  these  extracts,  and  indeed  from  all  his  writ- 


morell's  modern  philosophy.  499 

ings,  that  they  are  not  the  dogmata  of  Germany  which  Mr.  Carlyle 
idolizes,  but  the  lofty  intellect,  the  high-souled  independence,  and, 
above  all,  as  most  akin  with  the  aspirings  of  his  own  chivalrous 
and  undaunted  nature,  the  noble-heartedness  of  Germany.  And 
indeed  there  is  one  grand  peculiarity  for  which  we  would  set  him 
down  as  a  direct  and  diametrical  opponent  to  the  philosophy  of  her 
reigning  schools — and  that  is  the  value  he  ever  and  anon  expresses 
for  facts,  his  reverence  for  "great  facts,"  although  in  the  very 
class  of  those  truths  which  continentalism  would  stigmatize  as 
empirical,  and  reckon  with  as  of  immeasurably  lower  grade  than 
any  of  the  logical  results  of  its  own  hypothetical  speculations.* 
There  lies  an  immense  responsibility  on  professing  Christians,  if 
such  men  as  he,  with  their  importunate  and  most  righteous  de- 
mand for  all  the  generous  and  god-like  virtues  of  the  Gospel,  are 
not  brought  to  "  the  obedience  of  the  faith."  There  must  be  a 
most  deplorable  want  amongst  us  of  the  "  light  shining  before 
men,"  when,  instead  of  glorifying  our  cause,  they  can  speak,  and 
with  a  truth  the  most  humiliating,  of  our  inert  and  unproductive 
orthodoxy.  These  withering  adjurations  of  Carlyle  should  be 
of  use  to  our  churches ;  and  yet  most  assuredly  it  is  not  by  graft- 
ing the  German  philosophy  on  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ, — nor 
yet  by  overlaying  its  literal  facts  or  literal  doctrines  with  the 
glosses  and  the  allegories  of  German  rationalism, — it  is  not  thus 
that  we  shall  be  able  to  vindicate,  far  less  to  magnify,  our  religion, 
in  the  eyes  of  the  world.  Without  the  mutilation  of  it  by  one  jot 
or  one  tittle,  we  have  but  to  fill  and  follow  up  that  Gospel,  to  im- 
body  it  entire  in  our  own  personal  history,  turning  its  precepts 
into  a  law,  and  its  faith  into  a  living  principle.  All  the  elements 
of  moral  grace  and  grandeur  are  there — the  sublime  devotion — 
the  expansive  charity — the  greatness  of  soul,  inspired  not  by  the 
visions  but  the  clear  and  certain  views  of  immortality,  and  hence 
the  noble  superiority  to  the  commonplace  objects  of  a  selfish 
and  short-sighted  world— the  habit  of  unwearied  well-doing,  even 
in  the  midst  of  surrounding  apathy,  or  it  may  be  of  calumny  and 
injustice — those  heaven-born  virtues  which  spring  not  from  earth, 
but  are  nurtured  by  prayer,  and  descend  on  the  breast  of  every 
true  believer  from  the  upper  sanctuary :  And,  to  crown  the  whole, 
the  single-hearted  loyalty  to  Him  who  poured  out  his  soul  unto 
the  death  for  us,  and  who,  Himself  the  examplar  of  all  righteous- 
ness, tells  His  disciples  that  He  will  hold  them  to  be  indeed  His 
friends,  if  they  but  love  one  another  and  keep  his  commandments 

*  The  distinction  between  necessary  and  empirical  truths  might  with  all  sound  philos- 
ophy be  acquiesced  in,  were  it  not  for  the  degrading  associations  which  the  term  empiri- 
cal carries  along  with  it — tending  to  bring  down  the  category  of"  Quid  est"  among  the 
lowest,  when  in  fact  its  rightful  place  is  among  the  highest  objects  of  human  thought. 
We  therefore  desiderate  another  nomenclature  for  this  distinction,  as  due  to  the  worth, 
and,  we  add,  to  the  dignity  of  experience  or  of  experimental  science.  Such  is  the  power 
of  imposition  that  lies  in  mere  words ;  and  we  should  therefore  greatly  prefer  the  classifi- 
cation of  abstract  and  substantive  truths. 


508  MORELl/s    MODERN"    PHILOSOPHY. 

— These  are  the  simple  and  sublime  lessons  which  all  the  wisdom 
of  all  the  schools  never  could  have  reached,  and  most  certainly 
can  never  realize — because  only  to  be  sustained  on  the  basis  of 
those  Scriptures  which  '•  cannot  be  broken,*'  and  of  that  Word 
which  "  passeth  not  away." 


We  feel  that  we  have  scarcely  yet  broken  ground  on  the  sub- 
ject of  the  German  philosophy,  and  more  especially  of  its  bearings 
on  the  high  questions  of  Natural  and  Revealed  Religion.  Noth- 
ing, it  must  be  obvious,  beyond  the  general  and  the  introductory 
can  possibly  be  overtaken  within  the  compass  of  one  Article  ;  and 
that  for  doing  full  justice  to  the  theme,  there  should  be  a  succes- 
sion of  Articles — though  not  more  than  one  of  moderate  size 
in  each  Number  of  the  Review — so  as  to  bestow  a  piecemeal 
treatment  both  on  particular  authors  and  particular  arguments. 
It  is  thus  that  we  should  like  to  obtain  distinct  and  thorough  criti- 
cal estimates,  through  the  medium  of  some  one  or  other  of  their 
writings,  of  Kant,  and  Fichte,  and  Schelling,  and  Strauss,  and 
above  all  of  Cousin,  at  whose  hands — though  himself  not  altogether 
unscathed  by  the  transcendentalism  which  he  has  done  so  much 
to  expose — we  expect,  and  indeed  have  already  received  most  im- 
portant service,  for  the  re-establishment  both  of  a  sounder  meta- 
physics, and  of  a  sound  mental  philosophy.  We  happen  to  know 
a  sufficient  number  of  men  in  this  country,  equal,  and  more  than 
equal,  to  the  accomplishment  of  what  we  now  desiderate  in  be- 
half of  this  Journal ;  and  who,  would  they  only  give  themselves 
to  the  task,  could  make  triumphant  exposure  of  the  cosmogonies, 
and,  more  monstrous  still,  of  the  theogonies,  that  have  issued,  as 
their  original  fountain-head,  from  the  school  of  Konigsberg.  These 
men,  we  understand,  in  certain  subordinate  matters  of  specula- 
tion, in  some  of  what  may  be  called  the  secular  parts  of  their 
philosophy,  are  not  altogether  at  one.  But  this  is  a  difference 
which  in  itself,  as  well  as  the  exhibition  of  it  in  these  pages,  might 
well  be  tolerated.  Enough  for  us,  if  they  hold  in  common  that 
indispensable  philosophy,  which  is  either  conducive  to,  or  might 
legitimately  co-exist  with  a  sound  faith.  Enough,  if  they  can 
join  heart  and  hand  against  those  speculations  which  would  dis- 
place from  our  creed,  either  a  personal  and  living  God,  or  a  Bible 
which,  both  in  its  history  and  in  its  doctrines,  they  hold  to  be  lite- 
rally true. 

Let  us  proclaim  it  as  the  great  and  distinctive  feature  that  we 
should  wish  to  see  henceforth  impressed  upon  this  department  of 
the  Journal — the  most  special  service  which  through  its  medium 
we  should  like  were  rendered  to  society — the  best  and  worthiest 
honor  in  short  to  which  it  can  aspire — is  that  it  shall  ably  acquit 
itself  as  a  defender  of  the  Christian  faith,  intact  and  entire,  against 


morell's  modern  philosophy.  501 

those  new  and  unwonted  forms  of  infidelity  which  are  so  rife  and 
rampant  in  our  day — whether  springing  up  in  our  own  land,  or 
imported  from  abroad.  And  on  the  subject-matter,  as  well  as  the 
credentials  of  Christianity,  we  hope  and  are  persuaded  that  it  will 
give  forth  no  uncertain  sound  ;  but  will  both  be  the  unflinching 
advocate  of  pure  Scripture  doctrine,  and  breathe  throughout  its 
pages  the  spirit  of  a  deep-felt  and  devoted  piety. 

But  as  yet  we  have  only  spoken  of  one  department  in  the  re- 
view— even  that  which  is  consecrated  to  the  exposition  and  de- 
fence of  a  sound  Theology,  in  connection  with  a  sound  mental 
Philosophy  and  a  sound  Ethics.  We  are  glad  to  know  that  in 
the  high  department  of  Physical  Science,  it  will  be  supported  as 
heretofore  by  savants  of  the  first  name  in  the  country — while,  for 
the  general  and  miscellaneous  reader,  every  exertion  will  be  made 
to  obtain  the  best  possible  contributions  on  books  of  history  and 
travels  and  the  fine  arts,  as  well  as  on  the  methods  and  statistics 
of  education.  The  last  of  these  subjects  should  ever  occupy  a 
prominent  place  in  a  work  devoted,  as  this  is,  to  the  best  and 
highest  interests  of  society — and  more  especially  to  what  might 
be  termed  the  great  problem  of  our  day,  which  is  to  devise  and 
carry  into  effect  the  likeliest  means  for  the  permanent  amelioration, 
both  as  respects  their  comfort  and  their  character,  of  the  working 
class  in  our  land. 

There  are  certain  topics  of  an  ephemeral  character,  which  are 
more  appropriate  for  the  columns  of  a  Newspaper  than  for  the 
pages  of  a  Review.  And  yet  these  may  at  times  be  so  closely 
associated  with  permanent  truth,  or  be  so  conducive  to  the  illus- 
tration of  it,  as  to  claim  a  rightful  place  in  the  higher  of  these  pe- 
riodicals. Of  this  we  have  given  recent  instances  in  our  discus- 
sions both  on  a  Poor-law  and  on  the  Corn-laws.  To  these  we 
should  like  that  a  third  instance  were  added,  in  an  Article  on  the 
present  fearful  destitution  which  has  overtaken  certain  parts  of 
our  empire — the  most  expressive  title  for  which  would  be  "  The 
Political  economy  of  a  Famine."  We  regret  the  impossibility  of 
such  a  preparation  for  the  Number  now  issuing  from  the  press  ; 
but  though  we  cannot  at  present  give  the  reasoning,  it  may  be  of 
more  practical  importance  that  we  give  the  results  of  it.  We 
have  already  expressed  our  fears,  lest  the  power  and  the  prolific 
virtues  of  Free  Trade  should  be  greatly  overrated,  and  accord- 
ingly this  has  already  given  rise  to  far  too  large  an  expectation 
of  supplies  from  abroad — an  expectation  which  has  deluded  the 
public  mind  into  a  false  security,  and  may  have  perhaps  misled 
the  policy  of  our  Rulers,  else  we  might  have  had,  and  should  have 
still,  an  instant  stoppage  of  the  distilleries.  On  the  other  hand,  we 
hold  that  the  evils  of  a  Poor-rate,  in  corrupting  the  habits  and  un- 
dermining the  independence  of  the  working  classes,  cannot  be  over- 
rated. But  in  an  emergency  like  the  present,  of  palpable,  unde- 
niable distress,  when  human  creatures  are  dying  in  hundreds  be- 


502  morell's  modern  philosophy. 

fore  our  eyes,  all  the  liberalities  of  Government  (who  in  this  re- 
spect are  doing  nobly),  as  well  as  of  both  public  and  private  be- 
nevolence, should  be  put  forth  to  the  uttermost — for  the  mitiga- 
tion of  a  calamity  that  will  soon  evince  itself  to  be  of  ten-fold 
greater  dimensions  than  have  yet  come  within  the  reckoning  of 
the  community  at  large,  or  even  of  many  of  our  most  enlightened 
philanthropists  and  statesmen. 

In  conclusion,  let  us  observe,  that,  as  we  disclaim  for  this  Re- 
view all  partisanship  in  politics — so  with  like  earnestness  do  we 
disclaim  for  it  all  sectarianism  in  things  ecclesiastical.  We  utterly 
repudiate  its  being  our  aim  to  advance  the  objects  of  any  one  de- 
nomination in  the  Church  of  Christ,  though  we  shall  ever  re- 
gard it  as  a  high  and  holy  endeavor  to  advance  the  objects  of  the 
Church  Universal.  On  this  sacred  theme  our  alone  directory  is 
the  Bible,  and  our  alone  desire  is  to  speed  forward  the  cause  of 
truth  and  righteousness  in  the  world. 


POLITICAL  ECONOMY  OF  A  FAMINE. 


1.  Correspondence  from,  July,  1846,  to  February,  1847,  relating  to  the 
measures  adopted  for  the  Relief  of  the  Distress  in  Scotland. 

2.  Correspondence  from  July,  1846,  to  January,  1847,  relating  to  the 
measures  adopted  for  the  Belief  of  the  Distress  in  Ireland.     (Commis- 
sariat Series.) 

3.  Do.  do.  do.   (Board  of  Works  Series.) 

4.  Do.  from  January  to  March,  1847.     (Commissariat  Series.) 

(From  the  North  British  Review,  May,  1847.) 


We  feel  as  it  were  somewhat  daring  to  have  assumed  such  a 
title  for  our  article  as  "  The  Political  Economy  of  a  Famine,"  a 
revolting  and  unnatural  conjunction  it  will  be  thought  by  many  ; 
as  bringing  the  severest  infliction  which  can  be  laid  on  suffering 
humanity,  bringing  it  under  the  inspection  and  placing  it  at  the 
disposal  of  a  hard  and  unfeeling  overseer.  We  adopt  the  title 
notwithstanding,  and  this  expressly  because  we  want  to  make  the 
earliest  possible  declaration  of  war  against  such  an  imagination. 
Political  economy  is  no  more  responsible  for  the  perversities  and 
errors  of  its  disciples  than  is  any  other  of  the  sciences.  It  is  true 
that  it  is  a  science,  not  a  sentiment ;  and  that  as  a  science  it  is 
conversant  with  truth  alone.  It  has  been  variously  defined  ;  but 
let  us  once  take  up  the  view,  that  its  object  is  to  discover  and  as- 
sign the  laws  by  which  the  increase  and  distribution  of  wealth  are 
regulated — surely  a  fair  and  competent  field  of  inquiry  ;  and  pre- 
senting, it  may  be,  a  subject  in  every  way  as  accessible,  and  as 
capable  of  being  strictly  and  fully  ascertained,  as  any  other  subject 
of  human  investigation.  Now,  surely,  Political  Economy  might  be 
left  with  all  safety,  nay  often  with  great  advantage,  to  the  accom- 
plishment of  this  service,  without  damage  or  disturbance  to  the 
other,  and  it  may  be,  the  higher  objects  of  national  policy.  We 
might  take  her  lessons  upon  wealth,  and  yet  not  give  in  to  the 
false  and  ruinous  principle  that  wealth  is  the  summum  bonum  of 
a  people.  There  are  other  and  far  greater  interests,  not  to  be 
sacrificed  at  the  shrine  of  wealth,  but  to  which  wealth  should  be 
made  the  subordinate  and  the  tributary.  National  independence 
is  one  of  those  interests  which  most  men  will  think  is  paramount 
to  wealth,  and  therefore  ought  to  be  provided  for  at  the  expense 
of  adequate  naval  and  military  establishments.     National  virtue 


504  POLITICAL   ECONOMY    OF    A    FAMINE. 

is  another  of  those  interests  which  many  men,  and  ourselves  among 
the  number,  will  also  think  is  paramount  to  wealth,  and  ought  to 
be  provided  for  at  the  expense  of  good  institutions.  But,  to  come 
nearer  the  case  in  hand,  the  preservation  of  human  life  is  a  far 
higher  object  than  any  which  comes  within  the  range  of  Political 
Economy  ;  and  rather  than  that  so  much  as  one  of  our  fellow- 
countrymen  should  perish  of  hunger,  no  expense  should  be  spared 
to  prevent  a  catastrophe  so  horrible.  It  is  for  Humanity  to  give 
the  word  of  command  in  this  matter.  And  yet  Political  Economy 
has  a  word  in  it  too — the  word  of  direction  as  to  how  the  com- 
mand can  be  most  fully  and  effectually  executed.  We  might  re- 
fuse altogether  her  authority  as  a  master,  and  yet  avail  ourselves 
to  the  uttermost  of  her  services  as  a  guide — for  in  this  latter  ca- 
pacity her  lessons  are  invaluable  ;  and  it  is  high  time  to  put  a  de- 
cisive check  on  those  senseless  outcries  which,  both  in  and  out  of 
Parliament,  have  been  lifted  up  against  her.  There  is  no  such 
mal-adjustment  in  the  constitution,  whether  of  man  or  of  things, 
as  that,  for  the  sake  of  his  wellbeing,  a  violence  must  be  done 
either  to  reason  or  to  principle.  On  the  contrary,  it  will  ever  be 
found — that,  in  like  manner  as  truth  and  beauty,  so  truth  and  be- 
nevolence, or  truth  and  all  virtue  are  at  one. 

And  yet  scarcely  a  paragraph  can  be  written  on  the  existing 
distress  without  a  fling  at  Political  Economy — as  if  the  ills  and 
sufferings  of  society  must  be  laid  at  the  door  of  this  the  most  ma- 
ligned, while  perhaps  the  least  understood  of  the  Sciences.  And 
so  in  how  many  a  newspaper  do  we  read  of"  the  cold  maxims  of 
a  heartless  Political  Economy,"  of  the  numerous  deaths  by  famine 
being  "  holocausts  offered  at  the  shrine  of  Political  Economy." 
"  The  poor,"  we  are  told  from  Dingle  on  the  9th  of  February, 
"  are  at  the  mercy  of  the  famine-mongers,  who  have  advanced 
the  price  of  meal  from  three  to  four  shillings,  and  we  have  but  a 
small  supply  even  at  these  prices.  Our  bakers  are  making  exor- 
bitant profits.  It  is  a  pity  we  have  not  the  same  law  here  as  in 
Turkey,  where  they  are  nailed  through  the  ears  to  their  own 
doors."  In  like  manner,  the  Galway  Mercury,  after  recording  a 
death,  goes  on  to  observe  that  "  thus  another  of  our  fellow-crea- 
tures has  been  offered  up  a  holocaust  to  the  doctrine  of  Political 
Economy,  now  so  much  in  favor  with  our  Whig  rulers."  Similar 
reflections  to  these  occur  every  day  in  the  Irish  newspapers.  But 
to  us  the  far  most  interesting  specimen  is  that  given  forth  in  the 
verdict  of  a  jury  on  a  coroner's  inquest  in  Dublin,  as  fully  de- 
scribed in  Saunders'  News-Letter  of  February  16.  The  follow- 
ing is  a  part  of  that  verdict. — "  The  jury,  without  entering  into 
any  political  questions,  sincerely  deplore  that  the  existing  Govern- 
ment, however  kindly  and  well  disposed  towards  this  country, 
should  for  a  single  moment  adhere  to  a  cold-blooded  system  of 
Political  Economy,  which  thus  allows  famine  to  invade  the  very 
heart  of  our  metropolis,  and  is  rapidly  decimating  the  people 


POLITICAL    ECONOMY    OF    A    FAMINE.  505 

throughout  the  entire  island."  The  verdict  closes  thus — "In  con- 
clusion, the  jury,  while  fully  sensible  of  past  exertions,  respectfully 
implore  in  the  name  of  their  fellow-citizens,  that  the  Government 
will,  at  all  costs,  at  once  adopt  comprehensive,  energetic,  and 
above  all  immediate  measures,  to  stay  the  effects  of  the  famine 
now  ravaging  and  desolating  our  unfortunate  country." — A  most 
impressive  utterance,  and  in  a  spirit,  too,  wherewith  one  can  fully 
sympathize — given  in  truly  solemn  and  affecting  circumstances, 
and  worthy  of  all  duteous  and  respectful  consideration.  We  feel 
inclined  to  make  it  the  text  of  our  whole  Article,  though  perhaps 
differing  in  our  views  from  the  right-hearted  men  who  have  fur- 
nished it ;  and  disposed  to  think  that  neither  Government  nor 
Political  Economy  is  so  chargeable  with  their  country's  ills  as 
they  seem  to  apprehend. 

We  confess  our  toleration  and  even  our  sympathy  for  such  out- 
breakings  as  these,  when  they  proceed  from  the  sufferers  them- 
selves; but  not  when  uttered,  as  they  sometimes  are,  within  the 
walls  of  Parliament.  The  privations  and  the  high  prices,  which 
are  sufficiently  accounted  for  by  the  famine,  it  might  be  venial 
and  certainly  not  unnatural  for  parties  out  of  doors  to  charge  upon 
the  famine-mongers.  But  what  we  can  feel  the  utmost  indulgence 
for,  when  heard  at  a  public  meeting,  or  given  forth  from  a  jury- 
box,  might  be  a  disgrace  and  utter  folly,  if  spoken  in  the  Senate- 
house.  And  yet  it  is  but  the  other  day,  when,  if  the  reports  might 
be  credited,  a  distinguished  and  aspiring  statesman  could  tell,  with 
seeming  complacency,  of  a  law  by  which  the  dealers  in  corn,  be- 
cause dealers  of  course  in  the  miseries  of  the  people,  were  hung 
up  at  their  own  doors — an  invective  pardonable  enough  when  ut- 
tered, as  at  Dingle,  by  a  voice  from  among  the  dead  and  dying ; 
but  not  pardonable,  because  mischievous  and  wrong,  when  thus 
re-echoed  to  from  the  high  places  of  our  land.  It  is  certainly  not 
the  way  to  encourage  commerce,  or  to  facilitate  the  diffusion  of 
its  blessings,  thus  to  summon  up  the  terrors  of  Lynch  law  where- 
with to  overhang  and  overbear  its  operations.  We  know  not  in 
how  far  the  starvation  of  Ireland  might  be  owing  to  the  dread  of 
such  outrages,  and  to  the  insecurity  attendant  on  the  conveyance 
of  the  requisite  supplies  from  one  locality  to  another  ;  but  it  is 
our  strong  persuasion  that,  with  a  due  liberality  on  the  part  of 
Government,  along  with  a  wise  and  well-principled  administra- 
tion of  its  grants,  not  one  of  these  starvations  should  have  oc- 
curred. For  the  explanation  of  this  opinion,  however,  we  must 
draw  on  the  lessons  of  Political  Economy,  against  which,  so  loud 
is  the  popular  and  prevailing  cry,  that  but  few  will  listen  to  them. 
As  if  the  famine  were  not  of  itself  sufficient  to  account  for  the 
present  miseries  of  Ireland,  it  is  this  hateful  and  hated  Political 
Economy  which  must  bear  all  the  blame  of  them  ;  about  as  rea- 
sonable as  when  an  orator  in  Conciliation  Hall  ascribed  them  all 
to  politics — telling  us  that  it  was  now  the  46th  year  of  the  Union, 

64 


506  POLITICAL    ECONOMY    OF    A    FAMINE. 

and  that  such  was  the  state  to  which  that  measure  had  brought 
their  ill-governed  country.  This  might  pass  in  an  assembly  of 
demagogues  and  agitators  ;  but  it  is  truly  wretched  to  hear  of 
such  clap-traps  in  our  House  of  Commons,  whether  uttered  as 
fetches  for  popularity,  or  in  sheer  ignorance — an  ignorance  most 
unseemly  among  those,  who,  whether  men  of  wisdom  and  high 
talent  or  not,  should  at  least  be  men  of  education. 

Let  us  now  endeavor  to  lay  down,  with  all  possible  brevity, 
what  we  have  termed  the  Political  Economy  of  a  Famine. 

A  famine  may  be  either  general,  by  which  we  do  not  mean  a 
famine  extending  over  the  whole  world,  but  over  a  whole  coun- 
try ;  or  it  may  be  local,  that  is,  a  famine  confined  to  special  parts 
of  the  country. 

The  Political  Economy  of  a  general  famine  might  be  soon 
told  ;  and  let  us  accordingly  tell  it  in  as  few  words  as  we  can, 
that  more  room  might  be  left  for  what  is  specially,  and  at  this 
particular  moment,  the  matter  in  hand. 

The  effect  of  a  scarcity  on  prices  is  obvious  to  all ;  and  even 
to  most  men  the  reason  of  this  effect  is  alike  obvious.  The  first 
alarm  of  it  induces  an  earnest  competition  among  the  families  for 
food.  There  are  many  other  articles  of  expenditure,  the  use  of 
which  can  be  greatly  abridged,  or  even  might  be  altogether  dis- 
pensed with.  But  to  dispense  with  food  is  impossible,  and  neither 
can  the  use  of  it  be  much  abridged,  without  the  feeling  of  a  sore 
inconvenience..  It  is  thus  that  a  proportion  of  the  money  which 
in  ordinary  years  went  to  the  purchase  of  other  enjoyments,  will, 
in  a  year  of  scarcity,  be  reserved  for  the  purchase  of  necessaries. 
In  other  words,  a  greater  amount  of  money  is  brought  to  market 
than  usual,  and  this  over  against  a  smaller  amount  of  food  ;  and 
so  a  rise  in  its  price  is  the  inevitable  consequence.  It  were  well 
if  the  rationale  of  this  process  could  be  brought  clearly  and  con- 
vincingly home  to  the  apprehensions  of  all  men :  and  so  as  that 
we  could  reconcile  the  popular  understanding  to  the  conclusion 
which  might  be  drawn  from  it.  In  particular  it  were  well  if  they 
could  be  made  to  see  how  far  the  price  of  an  article  is  the  fiat, 
not  of  the  dealers,  but  the  fiat  of  the  customers  ;  or  that  such  is 
its  price,  not  because  the  dealers  exacted,  but  because  the  custom- 
ers offered  it — insomuch  that  the  collective  will  of  the  latter,  and 
not  of  the  former,  is  primarily  and  efficiently  the  cause  of  prices. 
It  is  quite  palpable  that  it  is  the  more  intense  demand  of  purchasers 
which  raises  prices  ;  and  that  this  calls  forth  larger  supplies,  which 
is  the  dealer's  part  of  the  operation,  and  has  the  direct  tendency 
to  lower  them.  All  this  as  being  part  of  the  alphabet  of  their 
science,  is  familiar  to  the  economist ;  nor  do  we  think  it  impossible 
to  be  made  as  familiar  to  the  people  at  large.  For  this  reason  we 
have  long  desiderated  that  Political  Economy  should  hold  a  pre- 
eminent place  among  the  lectureships  of  a  Mechanic  School,  where 


POLITICAL    ECONOMY    OF    A    FAMINE.  507 

instead  of  a  tyrant  or  a  disturber,  it  would  be  regarded,  and  at 
length  become  a  tranquillizer  of  the  commonwealth. 

But  not  only  are  high  prices  in  seasons  of  scarcity  a  present 
necessary  evil.  There  is  a  great  ulterior  good  to  which  they  are 
subservient.  There  are  few  of  any  pretensions  to  scholarship  or 
general  reading,  who  are  ignorant  of  Adam  Smith's  effective  illus- 
tration upon  this  subject — when  he  compares  a  country  under 
famine  to  a  ship  at  sea  that  had  run  short  of  provisions,  and  so 
had  to  put  the  crew  upon  a  short  allowance,  who  although  thus 
for  the  time  being  made  to  suffer,  were  enabled  thereby  to  live 
on  to  the  end  of  the  voyage.  Such  is  the  precise  effect  of  a  high 
price,  when  there  is  a  scanty  supply  of  food  in  the  land.  It  puts 
the  country  upon  short  allowance,  by  operating  as  a  check  upon 
consumption — when  families,  that  they  might  get  the  two  ends  to 
meet,  are  reduced  to  their  shifts  and  expedients  for  the  economiz- 
ing of  food.  Were  it  not  for  this  salutary  restraint,  were  the  in- 
adequate stock  of  provisions  sold  off  at  the  usual  price,  the  con- 
sumption would  go  on  at  its  usual  rate ;  and  the  premature  ex- 
haustion of  the  food  on  hand,  though  it  should  take  place  only  a 
single  month,  or  even  a  single  week  before  the  coming  harvest, 
would  land  the  country  in  all  the  horrors  of  a  general  starvation. 
We  are  quite  sensible  how  difficult  it  were  to  persuade  a  hungry 
population,  nay  how  provoking  it  might  be  when  such  a  lesson  is 
read  out  to  them  in  all  the  pride  and  confidence  of  reasoning. 
The  economist  would  adventure  himself  on  a  very  serious  hazard 
indeed,  were  he  in  all  the  coolness  of  his  argument  to  attempt 
such  a  demonstration  in  the  hearing  of  an  angry  multitude. 
Nevertheless  it  is  even  so,  helplessly  and  necessarily  so,  in  the 
nature  of  things  and  by  the  constitution  of  human  society.  The 
truth  of  it  is  quite  palpable  within  the  narrow  compass  of  a  ship, 
however  lost  sight  of  on  the  wider  field  of  a  country.  Should  one 
or  more  of  the  sailors  intimidate  the  store-keeper,  and  force  a 
larger  allowance  for  themselves,  the  indignation  of  the  crew,  when 
it  became  known,  would  be  directed  against  the  purloiner — on 
whom,  perhaps,  for  the  general  good,  they  would  carry  the  Lynch 
law  into  effect,  and  hang  him  up  at  the  yardarm.  Such  were  the 
likely  proceeding  at  sea,  but  on  land  they  would  order  the  matter 
differently.  They  would  hang  the  store-keeper — for  such  the 
corn-dealer  or  meal-seller  virtually  is — who  by  means  of  his  high 
prices  deals  out  their  short  allowances  to  the  people.  It  is  true, 
it  is  not  their  good,  but  his  own  gain,  that  he  is  looking  to  all  the 
while.  He  is  but  the  unconscious  instrument  of  a  great  and  gen- 
eral benefit,  which  he  is  not  counting  on  and  not  caring  for.  "He 
meaneth  not  so."  It  is  the  doing  of  a  higher  hand,  of  Him  who 
ordaineth  both  the  laws  of  Nature  and  the  laws  of  human  society ; 
and  who  can  not  only  make  the  wrath  of  man  to  praise  Him,  but 
who  can  make  even  the  selfishness  of  individuals  work  out  a  coun- 


508  POLITICAL    ECONOMY    OF    A    FAMINE. 

try's  salvation.  "  The  foolishness  of  God  is  wiser  than  the  wis- 
dom of  men." 

At  the  same  time  there  is  one  important  modification  of  this  doc- 
trine, which  neither  Adam  Smith  nor  almost  any  other  economist 
has  adverted  to  ;  and  which  we  state  all  the  more  willingly,  that 
it  might  serve  to  restrain  the  unqualified,  and  sometimes  injurious 
confidence,  which  is  now  so  generally  expressed  in  the  virtues  of 
Free  Trade — as  if  this  were  to  be  the  grand  panacea  for  all  the 
ills  that  can  befall  a  country  or  a  country's  population.  What 
we  refer  to  is  the  peculiarities  belonging  to  the  necessaries  of  life, 
in  regard  to  the  degree  of  variation  which  their  price  undergoes, 
as  affected  by  the  variation  in  the  quantity  brought  to  market. 
The  one  variation  greatly  exceeds  the  other.  For  example,  so 
small  a  diminution  as  one-tenth  in  the  grain  of  a  country  would 
induce  a  much  larger  augmentation  of  its  price,  so  as  to  make  it 
perhaps  one-third  dearer  than  before.  The  deficiency  of  a  third 
in  the  crop  would  probably  more  than  double  the  price  of  grain, 
while  if  approaching  to  one-half,  it  would  infallibly  land  us  in 
famine  prices.  It  is  thus  that  in  articles  of  prime  necessity  the 
price  describes  a  much  larger  arc  of  oscillation  than  does  the 
quantity,  or  fluctuates  far  more  widely  and  beyond  the  proportion 
of  those  fluctuations  which  take  place  in  the  supply.  And  the 
principle  of  this  is  obvious.  Men  can  want  luxuries  and  even 
comforts  ;  but  they  cannot  want  necessaries.  They  can  limit 
themselves  to  a  much  greater  extent  in  the  use  of  the  former  than 
in  the  use  of  the  latter.  Should  the  crop  of  sugar  be  deficient  by 
one-third,  they  could,  if  they  chose,  easily  put  up  with  one-third 
less  of  sugar — so  that  there  might  be  no  rise  of  price,  and  the 
whole  loss  incurred  by  the  deficiency  would  fall  upon  the  planters. 
Should  the  crops  of  grain  be  deficient  by  one-third,  men  could  not 
so  easily  put  up  with  one-third  less  of  bread  ;  and,  rather  than  this, 
would  make  a  larger  outlay  for  food  than  usual,  so  that  more 
money  might  come  into  market  for  less  of  the  article,  and,  instead 
of  loss,  there  would  be  gain  to  the  farmers.  It  is  thus  that,  gene- 
rally speaking,  the  keener  competition  in  years  of  scarcity  for  the 
necessaries  of  life,  causes  the  deficiency  to  fall  with  redoubled 
pressure  on  the  consumers,  who  have  both  less  to  eat  and  more 
to  pay  for  it. 

It  is  not  then  exactly,  and  in  all  cases,  true — that  the  interest 
of  the  dealers  coincides  to  the  full  with  the  interest  of  the  public ; 
or  that  the  former  will  take  care  to  sell  at  prices  sufficiently  low 
for  there  being  enough  of  consumption  to  carry  off  their  stocks, 
and  so  as  not  to  be  landed  in  such  a  surplus  at  the  end  of  the  agri- 
cultural year,  as  with  the  supplies  of  the  coming  harvest  might 
cause  that  grain  shall  be  a  drug  upon  the  market.  The  truth  is, 
and  on  the  strength  of  the  principle  just  explained,  that  if,  instead 
of  reserving  a  surplus,  they  had  agreed  to  destroy  it,  such  high 
prices  might  have  been  maintained  throughout  the  year  on  the 


POLITICAL    ECONOMY    OF    A    FAMINE.  509 

reduced  quantity  brought  to  market,  as  that  the  dealer  should  be 
more  than  indemnified.  The  elevation  of  price  would  more  than 
compensate  for  the  reduction  in  the  quantity — so  that  could  they 
agree  in  doing  what  the  Dutch  merchants  are  said  to  have  done 
with  their  spiceries,  lay  aside  a  certain  general  surplus  to  be 
burned  or  cast  into  the  sea,  it  might  be  greatly  more  than  made 
up  for  by  the  enhanced  prices  which  they  would  obtain  for  the 
remainder.  But  then  the  difficulty,  or  in  the  corn  trade,  the 
impossibility,  lies  in  getting  them  to  agree.  What  might  be 
effected  by  a  small  party  of  monopolists,  is  utterly  beyond  the 
power  of  a  general  combination  on  the  part  of  dealers  spread 
over  a  whole  empire,  and  acting  without  any  adequate  control  or 
cognizance  of  each  other's  operations.  Our  great  security,  then, 
in  all  our  larger  markets,  and  wherever  there  is  enough  of  com- 
petition among  parties  acting  separately,  and  out  of  sight  from 
each  other,  is  the  difficulty  of  combination.  It  is  in  these  circum- 
stances that  the  doctrine  of  Free  Trade  might  be  practically  car- 
ried forth  in  its  utmost  perfection — and  this  with  the  greatest 
possible  advantage  to  the  community  at  large.  The  commerce 
might  be  left,  or  to  use  a  still  stronger  word,  might  be  abandoned 
with  all  safety  to  its  own  operations.  And  all  which  Government 
has  to  do  is  this — refraining  from  those  interferences  by  which  it 
has  so  often  done  mischief — to  remove  those  obstructions  which 
itself  may  have  placed  in  the  way  either  of  arrivals  from  all 
parts  of  the  country,  or  of  arrivals  from  all  parts  of  the  world. 

Yet  there  is  one  important  exception,  peculiarly  applicable  to 
the  state  of  matters  at  present,  and  but  for  this  indeed  we  should 
not  have  lengthened  out  our  article  by  any  explanation  of  it. 
The  argument  in  favor  of  Free  Trade,  and  against  the  interfer- 
ence of  Government,  requires,  not  only  that  there  shall  be  an 
unshackled  competition,  but  that  there  shall  be  enough  of  it. 
Now  there  are  many  places  in  our  land,  and  more  especially  in 
that  part  of  it  on  which  the  present  calamitous  visitation  has 
lighted,  where  this  postulate  is  altogether  wanting — as  in  sequest- 
ered villages,  or  small  and  remote  islands,  where  a  single  meal- 
shop  might  suffice  for  all  the  customers  within  its  range.  Now  it 
is  in  these  circumstances,  that  one  or  even  a  small  number  of 
dealers,  if  but  few  enough  to  lay  their  heads  together,  could  easily 
so  manage  as  to  realize  the  most  unconscionable  profits.  They 
have  but  to  impose  their  own  prices,  and  they  have  the  people  at 
their  mercy.  It  is  true  they  might  in  this  way  greatly  limit  the 
consumption,  to  the  severe  hardship  and  suffering  of  all  the  fam- 
ilies, and  it  may  be  with  some  deaths  by  starvation  to  the  bar- 
gain ;  but  although  they  should  thus  abridge  the  sales,  they 
would,  if  there  be  truth  in  our  principle,  greatly  more  than  make 
up  for  this  to  themselves  by  an  overpassing  enhancement  of  the 
prices.  They  might  sell  one-third  less  than  at  a  fair  price  they 
would  have  done,  but  this  by  a  doubling  of  the  price,  and  so  a 


510  POLITICAL    ECONOMY    OF    A    FAMINE. 

tripling  or  quadrupling  of  their  own  profits.  Yet  notwithstand- 
ing this  cruel  monopoly  of  theirs,  we  would  not  just  hang  them 
up  at  their  own  doors ;  but,  with  all  deference  to  the  Free  Trade 
principle,  should  not  object  if  a  Relief  Committee  made  free  to 
take  the  business  for  a  time  out  of  their  hands,  by  importing  grain 
and  selling  it  at  the  cost  prices.  This  were  in  the  face  of  all  princi- 
ple in  those  places  where  there  is  enough  of  competition,  both  in 
the  retail  and  wholesale  business.  But  what  is  at  all  times  sound 
doctrine  for  London  or  Liverpool  might  in  particular  emergen- 
cies be  the  very  reverse  for  Owenmore  or  Tobermory — in  the 
former  of  which  places,  we  learn  from  a  private  source  that  rice 
has  been  selling  at  36s.  per  cwt.,  when  in  Dublin  it  was  selling 
for  24s. ;  while  in  the  latter,  it  appears  from  one  of  the  volumes 
under  review,  and  on  the  information  of  Sir  Edward  Coffin,  that 
the  people  were  "  much  gratified  with  the  prospect  of  obtaining 
the  needful  supplies  through  the  intervention  of  the  Government, 
and  at  cost  price,  instead  of  being  obliged  to  make  their  purchases 
at  Glasgow  or  Liverpool,  or  to  pay  the  exorbitant  prices  exacted 
by  the  few  local  dealers." — (P.  53  of  Scotch  Correspondence). 
There  is  no  disparagement  in  this  to  the  wisdom  of  the  very 
enlightened  Resolutions  on  the  part  of  the  North  Leith  Parochial 
Board,  when  the  recommendation  was  laid  before  them  of  laying 
in  stores  of  provisions ;  and  they  very  properly  decided  against 
it,  on  the  ground  "  that  the  saving  of  the  retailer's  profits  would 
be  nothing  to  the  advantage  of  their  funds."  But  while  very  true 
that  the  competition  in  such  a  place  as  Leith  is  a  sufficient  guar- 
antee against  extortion,  we  believe  that  what  Captain  Pole  tells 
us  of  Skye  is  just  as  true, — even  that  "  the  dealers  there  had 
raised  the  price  of  food  exorbitantly ; "  or,  as  he  expresses  it  in 
one  of  those  admirable  summaries  wherewith  he  closes  his  letters, 
that  "  the  market  is  destroyed  locally  by  the  famine  prices  of  the 
dealers."  We  therefore  fully  sympathize  with  Mr.  Rainey,  the 
patriotic  owner  of  the  island  of  Raasay,  when  he  complains  that 
"  his  people,  who  are  obliged  to  go  to  market  at  Portree,  are 
charged  exorbitantly  for  every  article."  And  hence,  too,  the 
Marquis  of  Lome,  who,  fully  aware  of  what  the  sound  Political 
Economy  is  on  the  general  question,  writes  thus  to  Sir  George 
Grey,  the  Home  Secretary,  "  That  interference  with  the  '  ordi- 
nary channels  of  trade'  is  in  itself  objectionable  there  can  be  no 
doubt ;  but  when  there  is  just  ground  to  fear  that  those  channels 
will  not  convey  to  any  district  a  sufficiently  accessible  supply 
of  food,  it  becomes  one  of  those  cases  of  necessity  which  de- 
mand extraordinary  measures.  The  fact  is  that,  as  regards  the 
most  distressed  districts  of  the  islands  and  western  coasts,  these 
'  channels  of  trade'  have  never  been  cut." — (Scotch  Correspond- 
ence, p.  26.)  The  wisdom,  therefore,  which  we  have  just  ascribed 
to  the  North  Leith  Resolutions,  does  not  conflict  with  the  equal 
wisdom  of  the  Argyleshire  Resolutions,  in  which  we   find  it 


TOLITICAL    ECONOMY    OF    A     FAMINE.  511 

stated,  that  "  there  are  localities  where,  from  the  great  redun- 
dancy of  population,  and  great  scarcity  of  food,  distance  from 
market,  and  the  nature  of  the  occupation  of  land,  it  is  practically 
impossible  to  command  a  supply  sufficient ;  that,  under  these  cir- 
cumstances, Government  should  be  requested  to  establish  stores 
of  food  in  the  localities  alluded  to.  such  as  Oban  or  Tobermory, 
so  as  to  be  accessible  to  proprietors  to  be  purchased  by  them." 
Yet  what  was  thus  requested  and  rightly  for  the  Hebrides,  was 
deprecated  and  just  as  rightly,  for  the  Shetland  isles — where  the 
framers  of  a  truly  enlightened  memorial  tell  us  that  they  wanted 
no  interference  with  the  retail  dealer,  on  whom  their  ordinary 
supplies  depend,  because  they  felt  assured  "  that  it  may  safely  be 
left  to  mercantile  enterprise  and  competition,  to  import  a  suffi- 
cient quantity  of  food  at  the  cheapest  rate,  provided  the  means 
for  paying  such  can  be  afforded  to  the  people."* — {Scotch  Cor- 
respondence, p.  154.)  It  is  a  matter  of  selection,  and  dependent 
on  the  circumstance  of  each  locality,  whether  there  should  be  a 
Government  depot  or  not ;  and  in  these  islands,  as  we  are  after- 
wards informed,  there  was  no  occasion  for  one,  because  there 
was  there  enough  of  competition  from  the  frequent  interchanges 
that  took  place  between  Lerwick,  the  capital  of  the  group,  and 
various  ports  in  the  south.  To  point  out  the  exceptions  to  a  doc- 
trine is  often  a  higher  effort  of  discrimination  than  to  understand 
the  doctrine  itself.  And  so  we  can  imagine  a  number  of  new- 
fledged  economists  in  the  metropolis  parroting  over  their  last 
gotten  lesson  of  Free  Trade,  and  contending  that  in  every  in- 
stance the  supply  of  what  is  needed  should  be  left  to  private 
speculation  and  individual  enterprise."  And  we  do  admit  that 
the  general  principle  is  a  sound  one.  Yet  we  rejoice  in  the  prac- 
tical good  sense  which  led  to  the  actual  instances  of  a  deviation 
from  it  in  the  west  of  Scotland,  and  still  more  throughout  Ireland 
— thus  carrying  it  over  a  philosophy  which  has  not  yet  learned  to 
take  proper  cognizance  of  its  own  limits,  or  to  distinguish  aright 
between  what  are  and  what  are  not  its  legitimate  applica- 
tions. 

But  we  must  not  linger  thus  at  the  threshold  ;  but,  keeping  in 
remembrance  our  allotted  limits,  enter  at  once  on  our  main  sub- 
ject, not  of  a  General,  but  of  a  Local  Famine.  This  is  the  char- 
acter of  our  present  visitation.  One-fifth,  perhaps  one-fourth  of 
our  people,  now  labor  under  the  almost  total  privation  of  what 
constituted  their  main  food.  It  is  not  that  the  other  ordinary  arti- 
cles of  agricultural  produce,  besides  what  themselves  eat,  are  not 
raised  upon  their  territory.  But  these  are  generally  sold  off;  and 
the  price  of  them  reserved  for  the  payment  of  rent,  and  the  pur- 

*  Let  the  reader  mark  the  importance  of  this  last  proviso.  It  is  but  doing  the  things 
by  halves  to  establish  depots  in  such  places  as  Skibbereen  or  Schull,  where,  if  the  food 
was  only  to  be  distributed  by  purchase,  yet  the  people  were  not  provided  with  the  means 
of  paying  for  it,  they  behooved  to  die  in  hundreds,  although  within  sight  of  plenty. 


512  POLITICAL    ECONOMY    OF    A    FAMINE. 

chase  of  a  few  indispensable  necessaries.  In  as  far  as  the  rent  is 
helped  out  by  the  sale  of  their  potatoe-fed  pigs,  this  too  has  en- 
tirely failed  them — so  that  the  revenue  of  the  landlords  has  been 
greatly  impaired  while  the  subsistence  of  the  peasantry  has  utterly 
"one.  Behold,  then,  several  millions  of  people  thus  circumstanced 
— the  oreat  bulk  of  them  in  Ireland,  with  one-quarter  or  one-third 
of  a  million  in  the  Highlands  of  Scotland — without  food  and  with- 
out the  money  to  purchase  it. 

Meanwhile  the  rest  of  our  people,  amounting  to  three-fourths  or 
four-fifths  of  the  whole,  have  been  living  in  the  enjoyment  of  their 
wonted  abundance.  We  ground  this  assertion,  not  on  any  reck- 
oning of  last  year's  crop,  which  some  contend  to  have  been  above 
and  others  somewhat  beneath  an  average.  We  ground  it  on  the 
palpable  fact,  that  although  the  price  of  their  staple  food  be  high, 
the  general  rate  of  wages,  both  throughout  England  and  in  the 
Lowlands  of  Scotland  is  proportionally  higher.  We  can  find  no 
such  record  of  the  wages  in  different  kinds  of  employment  from 
year  to  year,  as  we  have  of  the  prices  of  different  kinds  of  food. 
Vet  though  in  defect  of  all  arithmetical  statements  on  the  subject, 
we  might  confidently  affirm  notwithstanding,  that  the  working- 
classes,  in  all  those  parts  of  the  country  where  there  is  but  a  par- 
tial and  limited  dependence  on  potatoes,  are  comparatively  well 
ofF—  we  mean  comparatively  not  with  our  starving  Irish  or  High- 
landers, but  comparatively  with  themselves  in  other  and  ordinary 
years.  They  at  this  moment,  generally  speaking,  have  fully  their 
usual  command  over  the  necessaries  of  life — while  no  one  will 
deny,  that,  on  ascending  upwards  in  the  scale  of  society,  we  wit- 
ness as  full  a  command  over  its  comforts  and  luxuries  ;  and  that 
in  the  splendor,  and  profusion,  and  varied  gratifications  of  the 
affluent  and  higher  classes  there  is  no  abatement. 

These  then  are  the  data  upon  which  our  question  is  founded — a 
territory  consisting  of  two  parts,  whereof  the  one,  being  much 
the  smaller  of  the  two,  is  famine- stricken  to  the  extent  of  several 
millions  being  in  total  want  both  of  food  and  of  money  to  buy  it 
with  ;  and  the  other,  of  about  four  times  larger  population,  is  in 
the  full  enjoyment  of  at  least  its  wonted  or  average  abundance. 
And  the  question  is,  In  these  circumstances  can  all  be  kept  alive ; 
or  by  what  process  of  supply  and  distribution  is  it  possible  to 
avert  so  dreadful  a  catastrophe  as  that  a  single  human  creature 
shall  perish  of  hunger  ? 

This  is  truly  the  matter  in  hand,  the  first  and  foremost  of  all 
the  things  which  have  to  be  provided  for,  the  instant  cry  and  de- 
mand of  humanity,  admitted  and  felt  in  all  quarters  to  be  the  par- 
amount object,  and  by  none  more  honestly  and  intently  we  be- 
lieve than  by  the  Government  themselves  and  the  leading  officials 
whom  they  employ.  This  appears  in  every  page  of  their  pub- 
I  -bed  Correspondence,  the  perusal  of  which  would  serve  in  the 
mind  of  every  candid  reader  greatly  to  mitigate  the  charges  which 


POLITICAL    ECONOMY    OF    A    FAMINE.  513 

have  been  preferred  against  the  heartlessness  of  our  Rulers  and 
the  cold-bloodedness  of  their  Political  Economy.  "  The  condi- 
tion of  the  people  in  the  smaller  and  more  remote  islands,  who 
may  be  overtaken  and  overwhelmed  before  their  destitution  is 
known  or  provided  for,  will  require  special  attention."*  "  The 
population  must  be  fed."f  '•  The  people  cannot  under  any  cir- 
cumstances be  allowed  to  starve. "J  The  italics  are  in  Mr.  Tre- 
velyan's  own  hand,  whose  humanity  and  intelligence,  and  the 
skilful  adaptation  of  whose  counsels  to  the  ever  varying  cases  on 
which  his  judgment  was  called  for,  cannot  be  too  highly  appre- 
ciated. Into  whatever  mistakes  his  constituents  may  have  fallen, 
or  whatever  their  want  of  boldness  and  decision  in  the  encounter 
with  those  oppositions  to  which  they  may  have  too  easily  given 
way — certain  it  is,  both  of  him  and  of  them,  that  their  predominant 
feeling  all  along  has  been  earnestness  for  the  preservation  of  hu- 
man life.  To  achieve  this  is,  clearly  and  undoubtedly,  what  they 
would  if  they  could,  and  if  they  knew  but  how. 

And  yet  how  has  the  matter  actually  sped  1  The  number  of 
deaths,  and  this  too  in  their  cruellest  and  most  appalling  form, 
has  been  quite  fearful.  We  know  not,  if  since  the  dawn  of  modern 
civilization,  there  has  been  such  a  record  of  starvation  in  any 
country  within  the  limits  of  Christendom.  On  this  distressing 
subject,  it  were  endless  and  quite  unnecessary  to  go  into  detail — 
although  we  have  by  us  a  very  large  collection  both  of  newspa- 
per and  private  informations,  thinking  at  the  outset  that  these 
might  be  required  to  authenticate  our  statements.  Our  feeling 
now  is,  that  in  a  thing  so  palpable  and  notorious,  all  authentica- 
tion is  quite  uncalled  for.  We  have  read  of  the  Indian  and 
Chinese  famines  which  carried  off  their  millions ;  but  such  trage- 
dies on  the  great  scale,  and  so  near  home,  have  not  been  realized 
amongst  us  for  many  generations.§    And  we  feel  not  merely  that 

*  The  Lord-Advocate.  t  J.  R.  Macdonald,  Esq.  X  Mr.  Trevelyan. 

§  With  every  allowance  for  newspaper  exaggerations,  the  melancholy  evidence  is  now 
too  palpable  to  be  resisted  of  their  general  truth  upon  the  whole.  In  the  large  miscel- 
lany of  extracts  with  which  we  have  been  favored,  the  one  perhaps  which  has  taken 
the  most  powerful  hold  of  our  memory,  is  the  account  of  Captain  Caffin's  visit  to  Schull. 
Of  all  the  traits  which  are  given  in  these  numerous  discriptions,  to  us  the  most  painfully 
affecting  is  when  visitors  have  been  attracted  to  the  miserable  cabins  by  the  cries  of 
famishing  children  inside  ;  and  horror  is  superadded  to  compassion  when,  on  the  occa- 
sion of  some  of  these  entries  into  the  houses  of  the  dying,  we  read  of  the  unnatural 
fights  that  had  been  going  on  between  the  nearest  relatives  for  the  last  remaining  morsel 
of  food.  The  details  of  a  recent  field  of  battle  covered  over  with  the  wounded  and  the 
dead,  are  not  so  frightful  as  the  details  of  a  famine.  Our  allotted  pace  absolutely  forbids 
the  introduction  of  these;  but  let  us  present  the  following  from  one  of  the  several  hun- 
dred slips  which  lie  before  us. 

"  Limerick,  Friday,  March  5. 
"  County  Crown  Court. 
"melancholy  instance  of  destitution. 
"'  William  and  Margaret  Casey,  a  miserable  couple,  whose  wTretched  appearance  called 
forth  the  commiseration  of  the  entire  court,  were  indicted  for  stealing  one  sheep,  value 
ten  shillings,  the  property  of  Arthur  Hassett,  at  Castle  Roberts,  on  the  first  of  March. 

65 


514  POLITICAL    ECONOMY    OF    A    FAMINE. 

our  sense  of  humanity,  but  that  our  sense  of  national  honor  is 
affected  by  it — for  the  question  still  recurs,  Might  these  starva- 
tions already  past  have  been  prevented  ;  or  can  they  yet  be  pre- 
vented for  the  future,  and  how  ? 

It  might  help  us  to  resolve  this  question,  did  we  imagine  the 
famine  to  have  been  of  another  sort  than  that  by  which  we  have 
been  actually  visited — and  this  with  a  view  to  trace  the  effects  of 
it.  Let  us  conceive  then  for  a  moment,  not  that  it  had  been 
greater  than  our  present  famine  in  regard  to  its  degree,  but  that 
exactly  of  the  same  amount,  it  had  only  varied  from  it  in  regard 
to  its  distribution.  One  can  easily  figure  of  this  sad  scarcity,  that 
without  being  greater  on  the  whole,  it  had  been  more  equally 
spread — or  that,  instead  of  being  concentrated  upon  only  one  of 
our  crops,  so  as  to  have  nearly  destroyed  the  principal  food  of 
one-fourth  or  fifth  of  our  people,  it  had  been  shared  among  all  the 
crops,  and  this  to  the  effect  that  all  the  staple  foods  throughout  the 
British  islands  had  been  reduced  to  one-fourth  of  their  usual  quan- 
tity. At  this  rate  our  Irish  and  Highlanders,  instead  of  having 
lost  nearly  the  whole  of  their  potatoes,  would  still  have  three- 
fourths  left  to  them — while  our  Lowlanders  would  have  been 
obliged  to  put  up  with  three-fourths  of  their  usual  supply  of  oat- 
meal, and  the  English  with  three-fourths  of  their  wheaten  loaves. 
In  other  words,  instead  of  an  intensely  local,  we  should  have  had 
a  general  famine,  of  lighter  because  of  equalized  pressure  over  all 
our  population.  And  this  seems  to  have  been  very  much  the 
state  of  matters  in  the  severe;  yet  generally  diffused  scarcities  of 
1800  and  1801 — the  average  price  of  wheat  in  the  latter  of  these 
two  years  having  been  £5,  19s.  6d.  a  quarter,  whereas  at  present 
it  has  not  averaged  since  November  much  more  than  70s.  per 
quarter  ;  and  certain  it  is,  that  at  the  actual  rate  of  wages  for  the 
last  twelve  months,  the  great  majority  of  our  people,  throughout 
the  great  majority  of  our  land,  have  not  been  reduced  to  the  ne- 
cessity of  any  hard  economical  measures,  but  lived  up  to  their 
usual  rate  of  sufficiency  and  fulness.  It  was  quite  different  at  the 
commencement  of  this  century — when  we  might  with  perfect 
safety  affirm  that  there  was  an  equal  deficiency  of  food  upon  the 
whole  to  what  there  is  at  present,  but  more  equally  divided,  and 
so  borne  in  like  proportion  throughout  all  parts  of  the  country. 

Mr.  Fleetwood,  Clerk  of  the  Crown.—'  What  say  you  to  this  indictment,  William  Casey, 
are  you  guilty  or  not  V  Prisoner. — '  We  are  guilty,  my  Lord ;  two  of  our  children  died 
of  starvation,  and  we  had  nothing  to  eat  for  the  other  three  creatures  !  Sir  David  Roche 
knows  me,  my  lord.'  (Here  the  prisoners  burst  into  tears,  which  much  affected  the 
learned  judge.)  Sir  David  Roche,  High  Sheriff.—'  Indeed,  I  knew  the  poor  man  for 
many  years ;  and  I  am  sure  nothing  but  the  brink  of  starvation  would  have  led  him  to 
be  guilty  of  the  act.  Two  of  his  children  died.'  Prisoner. — '  They  did,  my  lord,  with 
the  hunger.'  Mr.  Sergeant  Stock.— 'And  where  are  the  other  three  children— what 
has  become  of  them  V  Both  prisoners,  in  tears. — '  We  don't  know,  my  lord ;  maybe 
they  are  all  dead  now  !'  Sergeant  Stock,  deeply  affected. — '  Would  you  be  any  service 
to  them,  if  you  were  set  at  large V  Prisoner.— 'I  would,  my  lord.'  Sergeant  Stock  — 
1  Let  them  be  discharged.' " 


POLITICAL    ECONOMY    OF    A     FAMINE.  515 

And  thus  all  were  put  on  their  short  allowance  ;  and  we  read  of 
severe  privation  everywhere,  but  of  starvation  nowhere,  at  least 
no  such  wholesale  starvation  as  now  makes  Ireland — and  we 
might  add  the  whole  nation  of  which  Ireland  is  a  part — a  specta- 
cle to  the  world.  In  1800  and  1801,  the  system  of  fewer  and 
scantier  rations  was  extended  over  the  whole  of  the  ship's  com- 
pany ;  and  at  the  expense,  doubtless,  of  painful  suffering  to  all. 
they  were  all  carried  through  to  the  end  of  the  voyage,  and  after 
much  of  destitution  and  distress  reached  the  port  in  safety.  Id 
1847  there  is  a  different  arrangement ;  and  with  no  greater  scar- 
city on  the  whole  than  at  the  former  period,  we  behold  the  wonted 
jollity  and  abundance  along  the  deck  of  the  vessel,  the  wonted 
luxury  under  the  awnings  of  the  quarter-deck  or  in  the  officers' 
cabins — while  all  those  wretched  men  who  have  their  berths  in 
the  forecastle  are  let  to  languish  and  die.  Providence  equalized 
the  visitation  of  about  fifty  years  back  ;  and  the  consequent  equal- 
ity of  distribution  which  laid  the  necessity  of  spare  living  upon  all, 
might  be  regarded  as  the  effect  at  once  of  a  direct  ordering  from 
God.  Providence  has  laid  upon  us  now,  not  a  heavier  visitation 
than  then,  but  has  laid  the  full  weight  of  it  on  the  distant  extremi- 
ties of  our  United  Kingdom  ;  and  left  the  task  of  equalization— if 
there  be  enough  of  wisdom  and  mercy  below  for  the  accomplish- 
ment of  the  task — to  the  ordering  of  man. 

But  do  the  means  really  exist  among  us  for  such  an  achieve- 
ment as  the  preservation  of  all  from  death  by  famine  ?  Have  we 
available  resources,  notwithstanding  the  deficiency  of  our  potato 
crop,  for  keeping  all  our  people  alive  1  We  have  no  doubt  on  the 
subject — resources  as  great  certainly,  and  we  think  greater  than 
in  1801,  when  the  universally  high  prices,  far  higher  in  relation  to 
wages  than  now,  put  all  upon  short  allowance ;  and  so  all  were 
borne  through,  without  those  mortalities  by  starvation,  or  by 
diseases  consequent  on  starvation,  which  are  now  going  on. 
And  what  a  general  short  allowance  did  then,  it  could  do  still — 
and  not  so  short,  we  believe,  as  that  which  was  weathered  and 
endured  for  two  years  at  the  beginning  of  this  century.  But 
greater  or  smaller,  it  would  equalize,  or  rather  it  would  tend  to 
equalize  the  pressure  over  all  parts  of  the  country.  And  the 
question  is,  How  shall  this  be  brought  about  ?  or,  By  what  means. 
by  what  method  of  going  about  it,  can  this  equalization,  or  rather 
this  approach  to  an  equalization,  be  effected? 

A  certain,  and  we  believe  a  very  large  approach,  is  made  to  it 
by  spontaneous  benevolenee.  Such  indeed  is  our  faith  in  the  effi- 
cacy of  this  natural  provision,  that,  in  ordinary  times,  we  could 
fearlessly  confide  to  it  the  whole  care  and  guardianship  of  the 
poor — we  mean  not  of  all  the  diseased,  but  of  all  the  merely  indi- 
gent poor.  One  of  our  chief  reasons  indeed  for  deprecating  the 
interference  of  law  in  this  department  of  human  affairs,  is,  that  it 
tends  to  supersede  and  lay  an  arrest  on  the  otherwise  effusive 


516  POLITICAL    ECONOMY    OF    A     FAMINE. 

kindness  to  the  destitute  of  their  relatives  and  neighbors ;  and  it 
is  our  honest  conviction  that  on  the  gradual  cessation  of  the  com- 
pulsory system  by  a  process  which  has  been  often  pointed  out,  an 
overpassing  compensation  for  the  withdrawal  of  poor-rate  allow- 
ances would  accrue,  from  the  simple  restoration  to  their  own 
proper  and  original  force  of  those  principles  in  our  constitution — 
the  law  of  self-preservation  and  the  law  of  compassion, — which 
have  to  so  great  an  extent  been  disturbed  in  their  natural  work- 
ings by  the  provisions  of  a  legal  and  artificial  charity.  And  in 
this  conviction  we  have  been  greatly  strengthened  and  confirmed 
by  all  that  we  have  read  and  observed  on  the  subject  of  the 
present  famines,  both  in  Ireland  and  the  Highlands  of  Scotland. 
For,  over  and  above  the  countless  instances  of  the  poor  helping 
the  poorer,  or  of  neighbors  who  had  little,  sharing  their  scanty 
stock  with  next-door  neighbors  who  had  none,  till  themselves 
brought  down  to  their  last  meal — over  and  above  what  has  taken 
place,  and  is  still  taking  place  in  every  little  vicinity,  where  com- 
passion within  a  right  acting  distance  from  its  objects,  and  unable 
to  withstand  the  spectacles  of  imploring  agony  and  distress,  leads 
to  the  noblest  sacrifices,  and  this  on  the  part  of  men  and  women 
in  all  ranks  of  society — but,  over  and  above  these  blissful  opera- 
tions of  the  home  charity,  let  us  contemplate  its  workings  further 
off,  when,  instead  of  neighbor  sharing  with  neighbor,  we  behold 
country  sharing  with  country,  for  that  the  appeals  of  suffering 
humanity,  though  necessarily  becoming  fainter  and  fainter  with 
the  lengths  to  which  they  are  carried,  are  still  found  to  tell  on  the 
hearts  and  the  sympathies  of  other  lands.  We  speak  not  only 
of  those  broader  and  more  conspicuous  streams  of  liberality 
which  flow  from  our  great  metropolitan  committees  to  those 
places  which  send  forth  the  loudest  cry  ;  but  also  of  those  numer- 
ous and  unseen  supplies  which  are  sent  through  the  channels  of 
private  correspondence,  and  are  never  heard  of  beyond  the  par- 
ties that  are  immediately  concerned.  Why,  it  is  but  the  other 
day  when  an  Irish  bank  was  applied  to  for  the  facility  of  suffering 
any  English  remittances  that  came  its  way,  to  pass  without  the 
usual  charge,  and  it  turned  out  that  they  had  been  in  the  habit 
of  doing  so  for  months,  and  that  through  their  one  office  the  sum 
of  twenty  thousand  pounds  had  been  handed  over  either  to  the 
dispensers  or  receivers  of  charity.  And  it  is  only  of  late  that  on 
a  larger  scale,  the  glorious  discovery  was  made  of  remittances  in 
the  same  way  to  the  extent  of  two  hundred  thousand  pounds  from 
Irish  emigrants  in  America  to  their  famishing  countrymen. 
There  is  a  like  movement  of  generosity,  and  it  is  most  refreshing 
to  be  told  of  it,  amongst  the  Americans  themselves — all  riveting 
the  confidence  that  we  have  ever  had  in  the  productiveness  and 
native  power  of  compassion,  adequate,  as  we  think,  to  every  fair 
claim  of  indigence  in  ordinary  times — insomuch,  that  with  a  feel- 
ing of  perfect  security  we  could  leave  to  its  sole  guardianship  and 


POLITICAL    ECONOMY    OF    A    FAMINE.  517 

care  those  poor  of  whom  our  Saviour  hath  said,  that  they  are 
always  witii  us,  would  but  a  cold  and  withering  legislation  keep 
off  its  hand,  and  not  overbear  the  will  to  do  them  good.* 

But  we  must  not  stop  longer  on  this  argument.  What  may 
suffice  in  ordinary,  clearly  will  not  suffice  for  the  present  over- 
whelming visitation.  There  is  an  imperious  call  for  the  Govern- 
ment to  come  forward — and  this  not  to  supersede  the  liberalities 
of  the  public,  but  to  superadd  thereto  the  allowances  of  the  State ; 
or  rather,  for  the  State  to  be  the  principal  almoner  in  such  a  dire 
emergency,  and  its  distributions  supplemented  to  the  uttermost  by 
the  charities  of  the  benevolent.  At  all  events,  humanity  calls  for 
such  allowances  as  might  guarantee  in  every  instance  the  preser- 
vation of  life.  It  is  for  Political  Economy  to  say,  whether  there 
be  funds  and  stores  in  existence,  out  of  which  such  allowances 
can  be  made ;  and  what  were  the  effect  of  granting  them  on  the 
economic  state  of  society  at  large. 

First,  then,  as  to  the  existence  of  sufficient  stores,  we  have 
good  prima  facie,  and,  to  speak  our  own  convictions,  a  conclusive 
evidence  in  the  fact,  that  although  there  has  been  an  almost  total 
destruction  of  food  in  certain  parts  of  our  territory,  yet,  if  instead 
of  being  thus  concentrated,  the  scarcity  had  been  generalized,  all 
would  have  been  put  upon  short  allowance  ;  but  all  would  have  been 
kept  alive — seeing  that  throughout  the  whole  of  this  dreary  season, 
as  far  as  it  has  yet  gone,  at  least  three-fourths,  we  should  incline 
to  say  four-fifths,  perhaps  even  five-sixths  of  our  population  have 
been  averagely  fed.  Had  the  present  famine  been  equalized,  the 
country  could  have  weathered  it  more  easily  than  it  did  the  gene- 
ral famine  of  1801.  And  further,  not  looking,  for  the  present,  to 
importations  from  abroad,  but  looking  exclusively  at  home,  the 
destruction  laid  upon  food  last  year  by  the  hand  of  nature,  is  not 
equal  to  the  destruction  laid  upon  it.  every  year  by  the  hand  of 
man ;  so  that,  could  man  have  been  prevailed  upon  to  abstain,  for 
the  time,  from  the  work  of  a  destroyer,  the  whole  deficiency 
might  from  this  source  alone  have  been  repaired.  Had  the  dis- 
tilleries been  stopped  as  they  were  in  1800  and  1801,  and  as  we 
believe  they  would  have  been  now,  if  the  famine,  though  not 
greater  in  amount,  had  only  been  general,  this,  alone,  would  have 
gone  far  to  repair  the  deficiency.  If,  over  and  above  this,  the 
breweries  had  been  stopped,  and  so  for  a  season  all  malting  been 
put  an  end  to,  this  would  have  greatly  more  than  covered  the 
deficiency.!     A  humane  and  virtuous  despotism  could  and  would 

*  Mark  xiv.,  7.  Our  Saviour  devolved  the  care  of  ine  poor  on  the  tcill  to  do  them 
good.     The  law  of  England  makes  that  which  was  left  -»o  will  a  matter  of  compulsion. 

+  From  M'Culloch's  Tables  it  would  appear  that  ducies  were  charged  on  malt  in  1844, 
throughout  the  United  Kingdom,  to  the  extent  of  j7,187,178  bushels,  or  4,048,397  qrs. 
And  from  a  recent  memorial  of  the  Scotch  distillers,  it  further  appears  that  the  amount 
of  spirits  distilled  from  raw  corn  is  about  fourteen  millions  of  gallons,  the  manufacture  of 
which  requres  770,000  quarters  of  grain,  making  the  whole  amount  used  in  breweries 
and  distilleries  to  be  upwards  of  five  millions  of  quarters,  and  this  exclusive  of  the  quan- 


518  POLITICAL    ECONOMY    OF    A    FAMINE. 

have  done  it  at  once.  But,  as  matters  stand,  Government  would 
demur  because  of  the  revenue,  and  the  agricultural  interest  for  its 
own  factitious  good  would  have  declaimed  against  it;  and  the 
popular  voice  in  Britain,  we  fear,  has  been  lifted  up  in  opposition, 
from  a  public  not  themselves  goaded  on  by  the  agonies  of  hunger. 
For  ourselves  we  should  have  rejoiced  had  there  been  a  sufficient 
energy  at  head-quarters  to  overrule  all  this — and  not  the  less  but 
the  more,  if,  by  an  entire  stoppage  of  the  distilleries,  the  beastly 
intoxications  of  Scotland  had  been  suspended.  We  should  even 
have  been  glad  had  the  malting  of  our  grain,  if  not  wholly  abol- 
ished, been  at  least  greatly  abridged  and  limited  by  a  heavier  tax- 
ation—although we  should  thereby  trench  upon  the  more  deco- 
rous indulgencies  of  which  the  working-classes  participate  so 
largely  in  the  beer-shops  of  England.  As  it  is,  what  between  the 
class  interests  of  our  grandees,  and  the  low  and  loathsome  dissi- 
pations of  our  common  people,  the  cry  of  famishing  millions  has 
been  overborne.  Altogether,  it  presents  a  most  piteous  and  pain- 
ful contemplation — recalling  our  old  image  of  the  ship,  where  the 
full  consumption  of  all  sorts  of  pastry  was  suffered  to  go  in  the 
cabins,  and  the  full  allowance  of  grog  was  served  out  to  the  sail- 
ors on  the  deck,  while  the  wretched  occupiers  of  the  forecastle, 
perhaps  the  helots  of  the  company,  were  left  in  lingering  agony 
to  live  or  perish  as  they  may. 

But  there  is  the  semblance  of  a  public  interest  in  one  of  the 
considerations  which  have  been  just  alleged  against  the  stoppage 
of  the  distilleries — we  mean  the  damage  that  would  thereby 
accrue  to  the  revenue.  This  brings  us  from  the  question  of  the 
sufficiency  of  stores,  to  the  second  question,  the  sufficiency  of 
funds — which  latter  question,  notwithstanding  its  substantial  iden- 
tity with  the  former,  occupies  so  distinct  and  almost  exclusive  a 
place  in  the  reasonings  of  merchants  and  financiers  and  practical 
statesmen,  as  to  require  that  a  separate  treatment  should  be 
bestowed  upon  it.  And  besides,  it  is  in  the  handling  of  this  ques- 
tion, that  we  come  in  sight  of  the  method,  the  business  method,  by 
which  the  degree  of  equalization  for  which  we  have  been  con- 
tending can  at  all  be  effected — that  is,  by  which  adequate  sup- 
plies might  have  been  transferred  from  one  part  of  the  United 
Kingdom  to  th<>  other,  from  the  region  of  comparative  plenty  to 
the  region  of  famine,  so  as  to  have  prevented  these  horrid  starva- 
tions ;  or,  in  other  words,  so  as  to  extend  that  system  of  short 
allowance,  by  which  no  doubt  we  should  have  stinted  the  liveli- 
hoods of  all,  in  itself  an  evil  certainly,  but  with  the  greatly  over- 
passing good  that  we  might  have  saved  the  lives  of  all. 

tities  consumed  in  illicit  distillation.  One  quarter  of  grain  is  understood  to  be  a  large 
allowance  for  each  individual  oveihead  of  the  population.  It  should  be  remarked  that 
the  distillation  from  raw  corn  is  cheifly  carried  on  in  England  and  Ireland,  whereas  they 
chiefly  distil  from  malt  in  Scotland.  Altogether,  the  amount  of  grain  consumed  in  reg- 
ular breweries  exceeds,  by  more  than  three  times,  the  amount  consumed  in  regular  or  le- 
fal  distilleries. 


POLITICAL    ECONOMY    OF    A    FAMINE.  519 

Did  we  continue  to  discuss  this  matter  in  the  terms  of  our  first 
question,  we  should  say,  let  us  share  with  them  of  our  abundance, 
and  give  to  these  starving  creatures  the  requisite  supply  of  food. 
But  we  are  now  discussing  it  in  the  terms  of  our  second  question  ; 
and  we  therefore  say  let  us  give  them  the  requisite  supply  of 
money  or  means  to  purchase  food.  And  it  is  not  necessary  for 
our  argument,  that  in  every  instance  the  money  should  be  actually 
put  into  their  hands.  It  might,  when  given  in  the  form  of  wages 
for  work  done  by  the  able-bodied.  But  when  in  the  form  of  gra- 
tuitous charity,  it  might  be  given  not  to  the  final  recipients,  but  to 
Relief  Committees  to  be  expended  for  them — because  perhaps 
they  choose,  and  very  properly,  to  grant  all  their  allowances  to 
the  destitute  in  food  only.  But  this  is  not  material  to  the  effect. 
In  either  way  the  same  amount  of  purchasing  power  would  be 
transferred  to  Ireland — whether  placed  in  the  hands  of  distribu- 
ting committees,  or  of  the  people  themselves.  And  what  we  par- 
ticularly want  to  impress  upon  our  readers  is  the  effect  which 
this  increase  of  purchasing  power  must  infallibly  have  upon 
prices.  Say  that  Ireland  is  enabled,  in  virtue  of  what  is  done  for 
her,  to  expend  in  the  course  of  the  year  ten  millions  more  than 
she  otherwise  could  have  done,  on  the  purchase  of  food.  Con- 
ceive that  when  Irishmen  are  left  alone,  either  to  live  on  their 
potatoes  as  in  ordinary  years,  or  to  die  for  want  of  them  as  in 
this  tremendous  year  of  famine — that  then  the  expenditure  for 
food  over  the  United  Kingdom  is  fifty  millions ;  but  that  when 
not  left  alone,  when  their  wants  are  supplied  to  the  extent  of  be- 
ing enabled  to  come  into  the  food  market  with  ten  millions  of 
purchase  money — then  the  whole  sum  brought  to  market  would 
instead  of  fifty  be  towards  sixty  millions.  Let  us  suppose  the  full 
sixty  millions ;  and  then  there  is  no  power  on  earth  which  could 
restrain  the  prices  from  rising,  and  that  in  the  proportion  of  fifty  to 
sixty.  Let  sixty  millions  of  money  come  in  place  of  fifty  into  all 
the  food  markets  of  this  country,  and  meet  there  with  but  the 
same  quantity  of  food ;  and  then  by  an  uncontrollable  necessity, 
this  is  the  ratio  in  which  prices  behoove  to  rise.  A  Government 
could,  in  such  a  state  of  things,  no  more  prevent  an  ascent  in  the 
price  of  grain,  from  70s.  to  84s.  a  quarter,  than  it  could  repeal  a 
law  of  nature.* 

It  is  thus  that,  in  proportion  to  the  magnitude  of  our  aids  to 

*  The  sum  of  ten  millions  given  to  the  destitute  would  not  all  come  back  upon  the 
market  for  the  purchase  of  food — as  so  much  of  it  would  be  reserved  by  them  for  the 
purchase  of  second  necessaries.  And  neither  when  prices  had  been  raised  would  the  old 
fifty  millions  in  the  hands  of  the  ordinary  consumers  be  expended  on  grain — for  the 
effect  of  the  now  higher  price  would  be  to  induce  a  general  economy  in  the  use  of  it. 
And,  besides,  so  far  as  importation  was  induced  by  the  rise  of  price,  this  would  tend  to 
lessen  the  rate  at  which  it  would  advance.  Notwithstanding  however,  that  these  va- 
rious influences  must  affect  the  numerical  calculation,  we  trust  it  is  quite  palpable  that 
in  proportion  as  we  enlarge  our  grants  to  the  destitute,  they  must  react  on  the  corn  mar- 
ket, so  as  to  raise  the  price  of  food  all  the  more,  and  generalize  the  short  allowance  in 
virtue  of  our  now  having  a  greater  number  of  customers  to  share  it  with  us. 


520  POLITICAL    ECONOMY    OF    A    FAMINE. 

• 

Ireland  must  be  the  rise  of  prices — an  evil  in  itself  certainly,  but 
an  evil  incurred  for  the  sake  of  a  greater  good,  the  preservation 
of  the  lives  of  our  people.  Had  we  let  them  die,  we  might  have 
retained  to  ourselves  the  whole  benefit  of  our  own  average  crops, 
and  at  average  prices.  We  might  have  gruffly  refused  to  share 
with  them  of  our  abundance;  and  in  this  way  could  have  kept 
down  prices — an  advantage  no  doubt  to  us,  but  no  sensible  advan- 
tage to  those  millions  in  Ireland,  who,  after  losing  their  potatoes, 
had  lost  their  all ;  and  so,  having  no  money  for  the  purchase  of 
other  food,  it  signified  little  to  them  whether  the  grain  was  to  be 
had  at  50s.  or  at  70s.  per  quarter.  There  was  no  other  remedy 
for  this  state  of  things,  than  the  transfer  either  of  the  meat  to  feed 
them,  or  of  the  money  to  buy  it  with.  Of  these  two  methods  we 
prefer  that  Government  should  take  the  latter;  and  after  having 
placed  the  money  there,  there  was  no  danger  but  that  the  mer- 
chants would  go  in  quest  of  it,  and  so  in  time  the  meat  would  fol- 
low.* It  is  for  this  reason  that  we  confess  our  partiality  for 
much  larger  and  more  liberal  grants  than  have  been  actually 
voted  by  Parliament.  We  had  a  longing  eye,  for  example,  on 
Lord  Bentinck's  sixteen  millions,  though  not  on  his  railways, 
which  we  could  have  dispensed  with  for  the  present — counting  it 
much  better  that  the  money  had  all  been  expended,  both  on  the 
enforcement  of  their  current  agriculture,  and  on  the  extension 
of  it,  that  larger  breadths  of  territory  might  be  taken  in  for  the 
grain  crops  of  the  coming  harvest.  It  is  thus  that  the  urgent 
demand  of  Ireland  for  food  would,  in  the  language  of  the  econo- 
mists have  become  an  effective  demand.  But  then  the  inevitable 
consequences  would  have  been  all  the  larger  rise  of  prices — and 
so  as  to  stint  our  people  everywhere,  but  this  in  order  that  they 
should  starve  nowhere.  A  most  righteous  and  humane  policy  we 
do  think — the  only  expedient  by  which  we  could  keep  off  from 
all  parts  of  our  land  the  horrors  of  extreme  famine — and  yet 
which  could  not  by  any  possibility  be  carried  into  effect  without 
such  a  rise  in  the  markets,  as  was  sure  to  bring  down  all  sorts 
of  contumely  and  execration  upon  famine-mongers. 

And  there  is  nothing  so  recondite  in  this  process,  but  that  it 
was  felt  and  complained  of  by  practical  men.     In  a  newspaper 

*  Yet  it  was  well  that  Government  dealt  to  a  certain  extent  in  food,  and  established 
their  depots  in  various  quarters.  Had  they  but  given  the  money,  the  meat  might  have 
followed  in  time,  but  in  very  many  places  not  in  due  time.  Our  regret  is,  that  the  meat 
was  paraded  in  these  depots  before  the  eyes  of  the  families  at  Skibereen  and  Schull ;  but 
as  these  had  not  the  money  the  meat  did  not  reach  them.  No  wonder  at  the  curses 
poured  by  them  from  their  inmost  souls  on  Political  Economy.  But  ere  blame  can 
alight  anywhere,  the  question  must  be  resolved,  on  whom  did  the  obligation  lie  of  fur- 
nishing the  money  1  Government  bestowed  a  great  deal  of  money — and  with  the  honest 
purpose  of  its  descending  to  the  very  poorest,  but  much  of  it  was  intercepted  by  the  less 
poor,  and  so  the  ymmwt  were  left  to  die.  The  Correspondence  on  which  we  have  bestowed 
much  and  earnest  attention  convinces  us.  that  though  Government  had  enlarged  its  grants 
tenfold,  the  want  of  preparation  and  of  arrangement  and  of  local  agencies  was  such  that 
in  the  disorderly  scramble  of  multitude!  for  the  largest  possible  share  of  what  was  going, 
many  in  the  various  fastnesses  of  Ireland  would  still  have  died. 


POLITICAL    ECONOMY    OF    A    FAMINE.  521 

speculation  of  some  months  back,  the  warning  was  held  out,  lest 
by  doing  too  much  for  Ireland  we  should  be  landed  in  famine 
prices  ourselves.  In  a  recent  petition  from  Blackburn  in  Lanca- 
shire to  the  House  of  Lords,  the  increase  of  pauperism  there  and 
in  other  parts  of  England  is  attributed  to  '"  the  excessive  price 
of  provisions,  consequent  on  the  vast  drain  to  Ireland" — a  drain, 
which  behooved  to  be  all  the  greater,  the  greater  our  liberalities 
to  Ireland,  whether  in  Government  grants,  or  in  the  benefactions 
of  private  charity.  Nay  we  find  one  part  of  Ireland  reclaiming 
against  the  subscriptions,  made  in  it  for  the  benefit  of  other  parts 
in  Ireland ;  and  we  are  told  that  the  wealthy  in  Dublin  should 
leave  the  care  of  the  poor  in  the  provinces  to  their  own  natural 
protectors,  the  owners  of  the  Laid,  and  should  expend  all  their 
incomes  in  Dublin  itself  for  the  sake  of  the  traders  and  shopkeep- 
ers there — that  "  the  clear  and  imperative  duty  of  the  residents  in 
Dublin  is  to  expand  and  not  to  contract  their  outlay," — "  to  en- 
large their  expenditure," — "to  spend  their  money  freely," — for 
that  distress  at  their  own  doors  would  ensue  from  "  a  general 
extinction  of  innnocent  gayeties."  It  is  on  some  such  ground  too, 
that  an  argument  is  raised  for  keeping  open  the  distilleries — for 
that  cows  were  fed  on  the  refuse  of  them  ;  and  that  the  citizens 
of  Dublin  could  not  be  adequately  supplied  with  milk,  unless  we 
consented  to  the  wholesale  destruction  of  food  for  human  bodies 
by  turning  it  into  a  poison  for  human  souls.  It  is  thus  that  in 
defence  of  their  own  near  and  partial  interests,  men  will  strain  at 
a  gnat  whilst  they  swallow  a  camel.  And  even  the  distillers 
themselves,  in  the  stout  defence  which  they  make  for  their  own 
manufacture,  can  tell  us,  that  doubtless  the  price  of  grain  is  raised 
by  it,  but  that  this  is  a  great  public  advantage,  for  that  high 
prices  stimulate  the  importation  from  abroad — as  if  because  such  a 
supply  in  consequence  of  our  high  prices  is  good,  the  supply 
without  such  high  prices  would  not  be  still  better.  The  truth  is, 
that  the  stoppage  of  the  distilleries,  if  accompanied  by  an  enlarge- 
ment of  the  grants  to  the  destitute,  would  have  effected  for  them 
the  same  double  benefit  on  a  large  scale,  which  they  obtain  on  a 
smaller  scale  from  those  benevolent  individuals,  who  retrench  the 
food  of  their  families,  and  make  over  the  price  of  that  retrench- 
ment to  a  charitable  fund.  It  is  really  not  possible  in  such  years 
of  scarcity  that  aught  like  a  general  or  effectual  relief  can  be 
made  out  for  the  very  poorest,  without  bringing  hardship  on  the 
less  poor  than  they,  and  without  the  burden  of  sacrifices  more  or 
less  painful  on  the  community  at  large.  Even  in  the  north  of 
Scotland  where  the  grain  was  dear,  it  was  right  that  part  of  it 
should  be  taken  away  for  the  supply  of  those  places  where  the 
grain  was  dearer,  and  still  more  where  the  people  were  in  greater 
want  than  themselves.  It  requires  a  strong  as  well  as  a  humane 
Government  to  repress  the  outbreakings  of  local  selfishness. 
Nevertheless  it  is  right  they  should,  because  right  that  one  and 

66 


522  POLITICAL    ECONOMY    OF    A    FAMINE. 

all  in  the  nation  should  suffer  rather  than  that  any  in  the  nation 
should  starve. 

We  repeat  that  the  high  price  of  grain  is  not  a  good  per  se,  but 
per  se  an  evil.  And  yet,  notwithstanding  there  might  be  two 
most  valid  reasons,  why,  in  times  like  these,  this  said  high  price 
should  gladden  the  heart  of  a  philanthropist,  if  he  had  but  the 
faculty  of  looking  both  far  enough  behind  and  far  enough  before 
him.  It  might  either  have  been  produced  as  the  necessary  effect 
of  one  good  thing  which  greatly  more  than  compensated  the  evil, 
and  ought  therefore  to  be  rejoiced  in ;  or  it  might  operate  as  the 
certain  cause  of  another  good  thing,  which  not  only  more  than 
compensated  the  evil,  but  which  limited  and  laid  a  check  upon 
the  increase  of  it,  and  ought  therefore  to  be  further  rejoiced  in. 
But  let  us  explain  ourselves,  with  an  earnest  request  at  the  same 
time  for  the  close,  even  though  it  should  be  the  painful  attention 
of  our  readers  to  what  might  be  felt  by  many  as  our  dull  argu- 
ment. And  first  then  it  had  surely  been  a  good  thing,  if  all  those 
wretched  creatures  who  have  died  of  starvation,  amounting  al- 
ready by  the  latest  computation  that  we  have  faith  in  to  a  quarter 
of  a  million  of  human  beings,  it  would  surely  have  been  a  very 
good  thing  had  they  all  been  kept  alive.  But  this  could  only  have 
been  done  either  by  giving  a  requisite  amount  of  food  to  the  peo- 
ple, or  of  money  to  buy  it  with — whether  this  money  was  put 
directly  into  their  own  hands,  or  into  the  hands,  be  it  of  Relief 
Committees  for  the  destitute,  or  of  paymasters  for  the  able-bodied, 
and  who  enforced  work  in  return  for  it.  In  whichever  of  these 
ways  we  should  have  brought  no  less  than  four  millions  of  addi- 
tional customers  upon  the  corn-market — for  this  is  the  number,  we 
are  credibly  told,  who  in  ordinary  years  would  have  lived  on 
potatoes  alone,  but  who,  this  year,  deprived  of  their  potatoes,  have 
no  other  food  than  grain  to  subsist  upon.  And  we  ask,  not  at  the 
mouth  of  Political  Economy  but  at  the  mouth  of  common  sense, 
how  is  it  possible  that  the  four  millions  of  additional  buyers,  not 
all  of  course  in  their  own  persons  but  in  the  persons  of  their  pa- 
rents or  representatives — how  is  it  possible  that  all  these  could 
have  come  into  the  market,  and  with  money  in  hand  too  for  mak- 
ing good  their  purchases,  without  a  rise  of  prices  ?  It  is  true  that 
we  could  have  kept  provisions  low  enough  for  ourselves,  much 
lower  than  they  are  at  present,  had  we  just  let  these  people  all 
die  off.  But  we  count  it  greatly  better  that  they  should  not  all 
die,  and  better  still,  if  we  had  so  enlarged  our  liberalities  that  none 
of  them  had  died.  We  observe,  at  the  moment  we  are  writing, 
that  the  Irish  papers  are  in  a  tumult  of  delight  because  of  the  fall- 
ing markets,  while,  contemporaneously  with  this,  the  deaths  by 
starvation  are  as  frequent  as  ever.  It  is  very  well  for  those  who 
have  any  money  that  prices  should  fall ;  but  it  signifies  little  to 
those  who  have  no  money  at  all,  whether  the  Indian  meal  should 
be  selling  at  70s.  or  60s.  a  quarter.    Now  as  we  are  pleading  not 


POLITICAL    ECONOMY    OF    A    FAMINE.  523 

for  the  less  poor,  but  for  the  very  poorest,  we  confess  that  rather 
than  lower  prices  along  with  numerous  starvations,  we  should 
like  to  have  higher  prices  and  no  starvations.  What  we  want  is 
that  the  most  wretched  occupiers  of  Ireland's  lands  should  be  pro- 
vided with  the  means  of  purchasing  food,  or  having  it  purchased 
for  them — even  though  it  should  bring  the  prices  up  again.  The 
returning  dearness,  we  most  readily  admit,  were  in  itself  an  evil  ; 
but  if  brought  about  in  this  way,  we  should  perfectly  rejoice  in  it 
as  the  symptom  and  effect  of  a  greatly  surpassing  good,  in  that, 
though  all  should  suffer,  yet  none  would  perish. — Thus  much 
for  a  high  price  of  grain  viewed  as  the  effect  of  one  good  thing. 
But  it  might,  and  we  may  indeed  say  must,  be  also  the  cause  of 
another  good  thing.  Not  to  speak  again  of  the  universal  economy 
which  it  induces  in  the  consumption  of  food,  so  as  to  cause  that 
our  scantier  stock  than  usual  shall  serve  by  a  sparer  maintenance 
than  usual  to  the  coming  harvest — let  us  only  reflect  on  the  addi- 
tions which  a  high  price  makes  to  this  stock,  by  the  mighty  stim- 
ulus it  gives  to  importation.  Had  any  one  but  watched,  as  we 
have  done,  the  progress  and  fluctuations  of  the  sensitive  corn- 
market  in  America — not  however  more  tremulous  and  sensitive 
there  than,  by  the  very  nature  of  the  commodity,  in  all  other  parts 
of  the  world,  and  observed  how  constantly  and  surely  every  re- 
port of  falling  prices  in  this  country  checked  the  business  of  ex- 
portation, and  even  led  in  some  instances,  to  the  relanding  of  its 
cargoes — had  it  thus  been  made  palpable  to  him,  that  they  are 
our  high  prices  and  these  alone  which  have  brought  and  continue 
to  bring  the  richly-laden  flotillas  of  the  New  World  to  our  shores 
— this  would  have  mitigated,  it  is  to  be  looped,  his  invectives 
against  the  famine-mongers,  and  somewhat  disarmed  his  fell  and 
fierce  antipathy  to  the  "  rogues  in  grain."  But  let  it  again  be  dis- 
tinctly understood,  that  we  should  like  it  infinitely  better  to  have 
the  supplies  without  the  high  prices  ;  and  thus  it  is  that  we  shall 
ever  mourn  over  the  non-stoppage  of  the  distilleries,  as  far  the 
least  defensible  part  in  the  policy  of  Ministers— even  though  Dub- 
lin should  have  been  thereby  stinted  in  milk  for  its  families,  and 
England  been  abridged  of  its  beer  and  brown-stout,  and  Scotland 
reft  altogether  of  its  mischievous  whiskey.  It  is  utterly  beyond 
the  endurance  of  human  nerves  that  these  indulgences  should  have 
been  kept  up  at  their  usual  rate,  or  rather  for  the  last  twelve-month 
to  a  greater  excess  of  dissipation  and  drunkenness  than  ever— 
while  Highlanders  all  the  while  have  been  writhing  in  the  agonies 
of  extreme  hunger,  and  Irishmen  in  thousand  have  been  dying. 

They  seem  to  have  ordered  this  matter  better  in  France.  We 
cannot  allege  aught  like  precise  information  on  the  statistics  of 
the  scarcity  there — yet  the  higher  price  of  grain  in  France  than 
in  Britain,  a  fact  in  itself  most  pregnant  with  inference,  is  fully  in 
keeping  with  all  that  we  have  heard  and  all  that  we  conceive  of 
the  state  of  matters  there.     As  first,  that  there  should  be  a  less 


524  POLITICAL    ECONOMY    OP    A    KA.UIN'E. 

deficiency  than  ours — it  amounting  to  a  shortness  from  their 
usual  yearly  produce,  of  forty-five  clays'  consumption,  or  one- 
eighth  of  the  whole,  whereas  ours  might  be  estimated  at  perhaps 
one-fifth  and  certainly  not  less  than  one-sixth  of  the  whole — and 
yet  with  them  a  higher  price  notwithstanding.  This  might  be 
due  in  part  to  theirs  being  a  general,  and  not  as  with  us  a  provin- 
cial famine  ;  and  so  an  eager  competition  for  food  all  over,  among 
those  who  have  the  means  of  purchasing — a  very  different  thing 
truly  in  its  effect  on  prices,  from  the  cry  of  distress,  however 
urgent,  among  those  who  have  not  the  means.  And  then  the 
very  generality  of  the  famine  intermingles  to  a  greater  extent,  the 
more  with  the  less  needy,  and  so  brings  them  within  a  better  act- 
ing distance,  both  for  the  excitement  and  the  exercise  of  compas- 
sion. And  last  of  all  more  ostensibly,  though  not  perhaps  more 
efficiently  than  either  of  these  causes  in  its  operation  upon  prices, 
is  the  munificence  of  the  public  treasury.  As  far  as  the  following 
private  letter  can  be  depended  on,  all  these  causes  have  been 
powerfully  at  work  in  France,  and  might  account  for  the  higher 
prices  there. — "  Never  before,  not  even  during  the  reign  of  the 
cholera,  have  charity  and  benevolence  been  displayed  in  a  man- 
ner so  spontaneous,  so  generous,  so  profuse,  so  effective.  Money 
is  contributed,  and  relief  is  administered,  not  with  the  character 
of  almsgiving,  nor  doled  out  with  reluctance  and  parsimony  and 
accompanied  by  reproach,  but  with  a  liberality  truly  admirable." 
"  One  capitalist  here  expended,  it  was  said,  in  charity  in  1832 
(during  the  presence  of  the  cholera),  £10,000  sterling.  His  dis- 
bursements in  this  year  of  suffering,  will  probably  amount  to 
double  that  sum.  This  spirit  of  benevolence,  and  this  energetic 
observance  of  its  dictates,  are,  however,  and  happily,  not  confined 
to  the  wealthy  and  the  great — the  whole  community  participate 
in  them.  Even  the  soldiery  divide  their  rations  with  the  poor. 
There  are  no  subscription  lists,  nor  newspaper  appeals  to  the  be- 
nificence  of  those  who  have  to  give,  no  stimulus  of  any  kind. 
Every  man  gives  all  that  he  can  afford,  and  does  it  as  a  matter 
of  course,  with  a  good  heart,  and  without  ostentation.  The  con- 
sequence of  this  general  movement  will  be,  that  few,  perhaps 
none,  will  perish  in  France  of  starvation  ;  that  is  a  great  matter  ; 
but  the  struggle  to  keep  up  the  supply  must  be  gigantic." — It  then 
tells  us  of  the  supplies  ordered  in  the  ports  of  the  Baltic  and  the 
Black  Sea,  and  of  the  United  States ;  and,  what  is  most  instruc- 
tive of  all,  of  the  immensely  large  orders  for  flour  sent  to  Eng- 
land. And  as  the  effect  of  all,  we  are  told  that  they  will  have  no 
;*  deaths  by  starvation"  to  register  ;  and  that  the  Government,  the 
capitalists,  the  clergy,  the  public,  are  resolved  upon  that.  It  is 
of  a  piece  with  all  this  information,  that  we  read  of  the  Baron 
Rothschild's  undertaking,  in  concert  with  the  French  Government, 
to  the  extent  of  millions  for  the  importation  of  food  from  America. 
It  will  perhaps  reconcile  our  own  public  to  high  prices,  when  thus 


POLITICAL    ECONOMY    OF    A    FAMINE.  525 

made  to  perceive  that  had  they  been  sufficiently  high,  it  would 
have  proved  a  defence  against  the  exportation  of  British  grain  to 
France,  besides  enabling  us  to  cope  on  more  equal  terms  with 
France  in  our  competition  for  the  grain  of  other  countries.  We 
are  aware  of  the  cry  that  there  is  to  prohibit  exportation  ;  but  we 
should  like  it  better  that  it  were  prevented  rather  than  prohibited, 
and  this  by  the  largeness  of  our  home  prices,  provided  it  were 
brought  about  as  in  France,  by  the  largeness  of  our  home  chari- 
ties. We  should  have  acquiesced  all  the  more  willingly  in  Lord 
John  Russell's  free-trade  reply  to  the  demands  for  prohibition, 
had  he  so  far  enlarged  the  national  grants  as  to  have  raised  our 
prices  beyond  the  reach  of  customers  from  France.  We  confess 
that  to  put  matters  right  both  in  Ireland  and  in  our  Highlands,  we 
had  a  longing  eye  on  Lord  George  Bentinck's  sixteen  millions, 
barring  his  railways — nay  could  have  acquiesced  in  Mr.  O'Con- 
nell's  thirty  millions,*  rather  than  that  the  whole  civilized  world 
should  have  been  so  scandalized  by  the  great  national  outrage 
upon  humanity  which  has  been  perpetrated  within  our  own  shores. 
But  we  must  not  be  carried  away  by  the  first  aspect  of  things. 
Indeed  we  should  prefer  that  if  possible  there  were  no  reckonings 
with  any  party  for  the  past,  excepting  for  the  practical  objects 
of  guidance  and  safety  for  the  future.  Certain  it  is,  that  the  more 
we  read  of  this  voluminous  correspondence,  the  less  are  we  in- 
clined to  lay  upon  Government  the  guilt  of  these  starvations. 
What  we  shall  ever  regret,  as  far  the  worst  of  the  charges  to 
which  they  have  been  exposed  is  that,  whether  for  the  sake  of 
the  revenue  or  in  deference  to  the  agricultural  interests,  they 
should  after  such  awful  tragedies  have  tolerated  that  wholesale 
destruction  of  human  food,  which  goes  on  in  our  distilleries.  Yet 
even  this  would  not  have  prevented  the  spectacles  of  horror  that 
have  taken  place  in  Ireland.  There  were  difficulties  which  all 
the  wealth  of  the  Indies  could  not  have  surmounted  ;  and  we  must 

*  Mr.  O'Connell,  in  a  letter  of  February  13th,  to  Mr.  Ray,  writes  thus— "  Parliament 
is  not  disposed  to  go  far  enough,  there  will  not  be  sufficient  relief  given  by  the  Parlia- 
ment; and  it  will  not  be  till  after  the  deaths  of  hundreds  of  thousands  that  regret  will 
arise  that  more  was  not  done  to  save  a  sinking  nation."  Mr.  O'Connell's  predicted  num- 
ber of  deaths  has  already  been  fully  realized.  Yet  we  cannot  be  blind  to  the  fact  that 
many  not  wholly  destitute  did  thrust  themselves  upon  the  public  works  to  the  exclusion 
of  as  many  who  were  altogether  without  the  means  of  subsistence ;  and  hence  a  number 
of  the  actual  starvations.  The  allowances  doubtless  were  a  good  deal  too  small.  It  was 
not  enough  that  men  should  have  been  kept  from  dying'.  They  should  have  been  kept 
from  wasting  into  skeletons.  We  should  therefore  have  rejoiced  in  much  larger  grants, 
but  still  cannot  rid  ourselves  of  the  persuasion,  that  although  they  had  been  increased 
threefold  still  there  would  have  been  many  deaths  by  hunger— first  from  the  want  of 
local  agencies  in  Ireland,  and  secondly  from  the  interception  of  the  supplies  by  those 
who  were  less  poor,  so  as  not  to  reach  them  who  were  poorest.  See  Captain  Wynne  s 
Letter  Irish  Correspondence,  Board  of  Works  Series,  Second  Part.  p.  15. 

In  Saunders'  News-Letter  of  April  5th,  we  read  that  "  the  20  per  cent,  reduction  (of 
the  men  employed  in  the  public  works  in  the  pay  of  Government)  works  well  insomuch 
that  it  has  put  off  many  persons  who  were  able  to  support  themselves  Such  men 
might  be  looked  upon  as  the  causes  of  the  deaths  by  starvation  of  those  who  were  exclu- 
ded from  the  places  which  they  had  no  right  to  occupy.     It  was  very  shameful. 


526  POLITICAL    ECONOMY    OF    A    FAMINE. 

take  a  calm  and  comprehensive  view  of  these  ere  we  can  admit 
that  in  France  there  is  either  a  larger-hearted  Government,  or  a 
more  generous  people  than  our  own. 

But  still  we  contend  that  the  want  of  money  ought  never  to 
have  been  felt  as  one  of  these  difficulties.  We  have  already 
stated  our  conviction  that  there  was  enough  of  food,  even  within 
the  limits  of  the  United  Kingdom,  whereby,  though  at  the  expense 
of  a  shorter  allowance  to  the  whole  and  the  abridgment  of  cer- 
tain luxuries,  we  might  have  mitigated,  to  a  far  greater  extent 
than  we  have  done,  those  extreme  sufferings  which  have  been  en- 
dured, and  are  still  felt,  throughout  the  famine-stricken  parts  of 
our  territory.  We  now  affirm  with  equal  confidence,  that  we 
could  have  raised  enough  of  means  for  the  purchase  of  that  food. 
We  do  not  ourselves  think  that  there  is  any  natural  necessity  for 
a  distinct  argument  on  each  of  these  topics.  But  the  necessity 
is  forced  upon  us  by  certain  mystifications,  or  factitious  difficul- 
ties, which  are  conjured  up  to  the  effect  of  obscuring  the  subject. 
We  are  told,  for  example,  by  Sir  Robert  Peel,  in  his  opposition  to 
Lord  George  Bentinck's  proposal  for  raising  the  sum  of  sixteen 
millions,  that  it  could  not  be  done  by  loan  without  too  violent  a 
disturbing  of  the  money-market — a  consideration,  we  believe,  not 
very  well  understood  by  the  vast  majority  of  those  to  whom  it 
was  addressed,  but  all  the  more  fitted  on  that  account  to  silence 
them,  seeing  that  the  whole  mechanism  of  our  Stock  Exchange, 
and  monetary  system,  stands  at  as  great  a  distance  from  all  ordi- 
dinary  and  many  superior  understandings,  as  do  the  very  highest 
themes  of  high  transcendentalism.  For  ourselves  we  should  have 
been  willing  to  brave  the  hazard  of  disturbing,  however  violently, 
the  money-market — rather  than  not  have  met  the  exigencies  of 
our  present  visitation.  But  there  is  another  and  a  better  expedi- 
ent, suggested  too  by  Sir  Robert  himself,  and  which  if  fully  acted 
on  would  help  us  out  of  this  whole  difficulty.  When  speaking  on 
Lord  George  Bentinck's  motion,  and  of  the  deficiency  incurred 
by  the  outlay  on  Ireland,  he  tells  us  "  that  he  knew  no  other 
method  of  providing  for  this  assumed  deficiency  (nine  millions), 
except  that  of  making  a  vigorous  effort  at  direct  taxation,  to  be 
visited  he  presumed  upon  all  parts  of  the  United  Kingdom."  We 
most  sincerely  rejoice  that  he  made  this  suggestion,  and  still  more 
that  it  was  received  with  loud  cheers  by  the  ministerial  side  of 
the  House.  But  could  not  the  same  direct  taxation  which  is  to 
make  up  the  deficiency  so  many  months  hence,  could  it  not  have 
prevented  the  deficiency  by  providing  against  it  beforehand  ? 
And  if  by  dint  of  vigor  it  can  raise  the  nine  millions,  can  it  not 
by  dint  of  greater  vigor  raise  twenty  or  thirty  millions,  if  indeed 
and  rightfully  called  for  ?  We  think  that  it  can  ;  and  that  Great 
Britain  has  not  aroused  herself  to  an  effort  at  all  commensurate 
to  the  wants  of  this  awful  crisis,  or  commensurate  to  her  own 
wealth.     Rather  than  that  this  should  not  be  done,  we  would  ac- 


POLITICAL    ECONOMY    OF    A    FAMINE.  527 

quiesce  in  a  loan  with  all  its  alleged  inconveniences  and  evils ; 
but  our  clear  preference,  and  for  more  reasons  than  we  can  at 
present  explain,  is  for  direct  taxation. 

We  first  observe,  then,  of  these  two  great  rival  methods  for 
raising  a  public  revenue — that  is,  either  mediately  by  a  duty  upon 
commodities,  or  immediately  and  directly  by  a  tax  whether  on 
property  or  income* — it  is  obvious  that  each  has  its  own  distinct 
and  peculiar  limit.  In  regard  to  the  former  way  of  it,  it  is  easy 
to  perceive  that  each  addition  to  the  duty  lays  a  further  check  on 
the  consumption  of  an  article.  The  dearer  that  wine  is  made  by 
taxation,  the  less  of  wine  will  be  drunk.  It  is  thus  that  the  wine- 
tax,  with  every  new  addition  to  the  impost,  tends  to  limit  more 
and  more  the  wine-trade  till  at  length  it  ceases,  notwithstanding 
the  higher  duties,  to  be  so  productive  as  before.  It  is  at  this  point 
that  the  produce  of  the  tax  reaches  its  maximum,  beyond  which 
it  cannot  be  carried  without  loss  to  the  revenue — so  that  now  the 
wine- trade  is  made  to  yield  its  uttermost  to  the  National  Treas- 
ury. But  the  limit  in  direct  taxation,  such  as  an  income  tax, 
shoots  greatly  ahead  of  this.  It  is  true  that  the  further  it  is  car- 
ried the  less  will  subjects  have  to  spend,  and  the  consumption  of 
every  article  which  can  be  dispensed  with  will  be  all  the  more 
restrained.  One  can  imagine  in  the  consequent  abridgment  which 
must  take  place  on  the  use  of  luxuries,  that  the  consumption  of 
wine  might  be  limited,  not  merely  to  the  point  where  it  before 
yielded  the  greatest  possible  revenue  to  the  State,  but  very  much 
within  this — nay,  that  men  might  cease  to  drink  it  altogether,  and 
so  the  wine-trade  be  annihilated.  It  is  palpable,  however,  that 
as  the  effect  of  this  process,  a  greater  revenue  might  accrue  to 
the  State  than  ever — for,  over  and  above  all  which  it  ever  real- 
ized by  a  tax  on  the  commodity,  it,  by  seizing  on  the  whole  price, 
gets  hold  not  only  of  that  part  which  furnished  the  tax,  but  the 
natural  price  of  the  wine  to  the  bargain.  The  rapidly  intuitive 
Charles  Fox,  when  himself  a  Minister  of  State,  had  his  eye  upon 
this  enlargement,  and  tells  us  in  one  of  his  speeches,  that  the  only 
limit  to  the  produce  of  an  income-tax,  was  the  reduction  of  all  the 
families  in  the  land  to  the  necessaries  of  life — a  proposition  this, 
however,  which,  to  be  guarded  against  all  exceptions,  would  re- 
quire to  have  some  modifications  laid  upon  it,  for  the  statement 
of  which  we  have  no  room  at  present. 

But  the  abridgment,  and  still  more  the  destruction,  of  trade, 

*  We  have  explained  elsewhere  our  views  upon  taxation,  and  the  reasons  of  our  prefer- 
ence  for  a  tax  on  property  or  income  to  a  tax  upon  commodities.  Our  own  opinion, 
and  that  on  grounds  altogether  distinct  from  those  of  the  French  economists,  is  that  all 
taxes  fall  ultimately  upon  land.  It  will  be  very  long  however  before  the  public  will  be 
convinced,  or  Parliament  will  act  upon  this  principle.  Meanwhile,  we  hail  every  ap- 
proximation to  what  we  deem  the  optimism  of  this  subject.  It  would  mightily  advance 
the  cause,  and  make  direct  taxation  greatly  more  popular,  were  it  carried  into  effect  by  a 
small  centage  on  property,  rather  than  by  a  centage  twenty  times  larger  on  income— in 
other  words  were  the  tax  on  property  alone,  and  not  at  all  on  income. 


528  POLITICAL    ECONOMY    OF    A    FAMINE. 

which  we  have  represented  to  be  the  tendency  and  effect  of  direct 
taxation,  carries  in  it  a  frightful  aspect  to  many  an  imagination — 
as  if  on  the  decay  and  extinction  of  trade,  the  whole  power  and 
superiority  of  Britain  were  to  decay  and  vanish  along  with  it. 
There  is  an  inveterate  delusion  here,  and  yet  which  a  very  simple 
consideration  should  put  to  flight.  No  manufacture,  or  no  trade, 
yields  more  for  the  good  of  a  nation,  than  just  the  commodity 
which  it  produces,  or  in  which  it  deals.  The  wine-trade  yields 
nothing  but  wine.  The  whole  amount  of  what  the  stocking  man- 
ufacture renders  to  society  is  stockings.  Our  various  export 
commodities,  the  preparation  of  which  gives  employment  to  so 
many  of  our  people,  contribute  nothing  more  to  the  public  interest 
than  just  the  import  articles  which  come  back  in  return  for  them, 
as  oranges,  or  figs,  or  India  shawls,  or  tea,  or  coffee,  or  rum,  or 
sugar.  We  are  aware  that  the  work  of  procuring  all  these  things, 
whether  to  array  with  them  our  persons  or  to  lay  them  upon  our 
tables,  gives  rise  to  a  commerce  which  is  dignified  with  the  name 
of  so  many  interests,  as  the  manufacturing  interest,  and  the  ship- 
ping interest,  and  the  East  or  West  India  interest.  But  let  not 
the  magnificence  of  these  titles  impose  upon  us,  or  lead  us  to 
imagine  that  any  one  branch  of  commerce  yields  more  for  the 
well-being  of  the  community  than  merely  its  own  articles.  But 
does  it  not,  over  and  above,  afford  their  maintenance  to  the  peo- 
ple engaged  in  it  ?  No,  it  gives  them  their  employment  but  not 
their  maintenance.  This  maintenance  lies  enveloped,  not  in  the 
article  which  they  produce,  but  in  the  price  which  is  paid  for  it. 
It  comes,  as  it  were,  from  the  other  side  of  the  exchange — not 
from  the  manufacturers  who  work  up  the  article,  or  the  traders 
who  bring  it  to  market,  but  from  the  customers  who  pay  the  price 
for  it.  The  perpetual  tendency  is  to  accredit  every  particular 
trade  both  with  its  own  proceeds  and  with  the  returns  which  they 
bring  ;  and  the  most  egregious  example  that  can  be  found  of  this 
delusion  is  in  that  most  mercantile  of  all  politicians,  William  Pitt, 
who  at  the  commencement  of  the  revolutionary  war  prophesied 
the  ruin  of  France's  power  from  the  ruin  of  her  commerce,  in  the 
loss  of  which  he  could  perceive  nothing  else  than  the  loss  of  all 
her  means  for  the  payment  and  maintenance  of  armies.  It  was 
the  destruction  of  her  commerce  which  gave  her  her  armies.  She 
lost  by  it  the  luxuries  which  commerce  yields ;  but  the  mainte- 
nance of  the  workmen  whom  commerce  employs  still  remained 
with  her.  The  effect  was  to  transform  millions  of  artisans  and 
operatives  formerly  in  the  pay  of  individual  consumers,  into  as 
many  soldiers,  afterwards  in  the  pay  of  the  state.  From  the 
earthquake  which  ingulfed  her  commerce,  there  suddenly  sprang 
forth  a  host  of  armed  men  whom  no  man  could  number,  who  in 
a  few  months  cleared  her  territory  of  all  its  invaders,  and  in  a 
few  years  achieved  the  subjugation  of  all  continental  Europe  to 
the  bargain.     The  levies  and  conscriptions  of  France  at  that  pe- 


POLITICAL    ECONOMY    OF    A    FAMINE.  529 

riod  should  have  taught  our  statesmen  long  ago  what  that  is 
which  constitutes  the  real  strength  and  resources  of  a  kingdom. 
The  lesson  we  think  is  now  beginning  to  dawn  on  the  minds  of 
certain  of  our  statesmen,  more  especially  of  Sir  Robert  Peel,  who 
already  in  a  small  way  has  made  prosperous  trial  of  vigorous  di- 
rect taxation,  and  would  recommend  for  a  time  at  least,  the  fur- 
ther extension  of  it,  to  meet  the  exigency  of  our  Irish  and  High- 
land famines.  It  is  our  deep-felt  conviction  that  did  Britain  but 
know  the  might  and  the  magnitude  of  those  resources  where- 
with Providence  has  blessed  her,  she  would  not  so  quail  and 
falter  and  be  in  sore  perplexity  before  her  present  visitation.  Had 
she  but  the  full  consciousness  of  her  hand  of  strength,  she  would 
put  it  forth  ;  and  make  the  grand  comprehensive  effort  so  feelingly 
and  forcibly  called  for  by  the  honest  jurymen  of  Dublin — and,  not 
by  one  measure  only,  but  by  a  series  of  measures,  accomplish 
both  the  new-modelling  of  our  Highlands,  and  the  reconstruction 
of  Ireland,  and  this  at  one  tithe  of  the  expense  which  she  has  lav- 
ished on  many  of  her  wars.* 

Let  us  imagine  that,  among  the  many  things  to  be  yet  done  for 
Ireland,  there  behooved,  perhaps  for  years  to  come,  to  be  a  large 
importation  of  food  from  abroad,  and  this  to  provide  against  the 
unavoidable  deficiencies  which  must  arise  from  the  neglected 
agriculture  of  the  present  year,  and  which  may  continue  for  sev- 
eral years  to  come  ere  the  difference  can  be  made  good  between 
a  grain-fed  and  a  potato-fed  population.  It  seems  quite  clear 
that  without  such  extraordinary  supplies,  we  shall  have  again  and 
again  to  incur  the  misery  and  disgrace  of  those  hideous  starva- 
tions which  have  scandalized  the  world — and  all  the  more  that 
they  took  place  in  one  portion  of  the  United  Kingdom,  while  in 
the  other  portions  of  it  the  people  from  high  to  low  were  in  cir- 
cumstances for  giving  full  swing,  or  at  least  to  an  extent  as  great 
as  usual,  to  all  sorts  of  luxurious  and  even  riotous  indulgence.  And 
it  seems  equally  clear  that  the  whole  expense  of  these  supplies 
cannot  be  left,  whether  through  the  medium  of  grants  to  the  help- 
less or  of  wages  to  the  able-bodied  beyond  the  value  of  their  labor, 
cannot  be  left  on  the  landlords,  without  entailing  such  an  amount 
of  ruin  upon  the  order,  and  filling  them  with  such  a  sense  of  de- 
spair, as  to  aleniate  from  all  co-operation,  that  body  of  men, 

*  A  direct  taxation  for  the  special  object  of  putting  Ireland  and  our  Highlands  right 
might  be  spread  over  several  years  of  a  transition  process — just  as  among  our  city  taxes, 
there  often  comes,  and  for  a  length  of  time  too,  a  special  charge  for  improvements — and 
which  continues  to  be  levied  till  they  are  all  paid  for.  It  were  a  noble  exhibition  of 
Patriotism  and  public  virtue  would  Parliament  venture  on  such  an  imposition  and  the 
people  willingly  respond  to  it.  Our  own  preference  would  be  for  the  graduation  of  6uch 
a  tax  and  in  this  way — to  lay  no  tax  on  any  income  below  £50,  and  then  to  tax  all  above 
this,  not  by  laying  the  centage  on  the  whole  income,  but  only  upon  the  excess  above 
£50.  Thus  a*  tax  of  5  per  cent,  would  amount  to  10s.  on  all  who  had  £60  a  year,  to 
20s.  on  all  who  had  £70  a  year,  &c.  The  produce  of  such  a  tax.  if  wisely  administered, 
might  transform  both  Ireland  and  the  Highlands  into  prosperous  countries  in  the  course 
of  a  few  years. 

67 


.530  POLITICAL    ECONOMY    OF    A    FAMINE. 

through  whom  alone  we  can  obtain  such  local  agencies,  as  are 
indispensable  for  giving  effect  to  the  measures  which  have  yet  to 
be  decided  on,  ere  Ireland  shall  be  conducted  with  safety  and 
general  advantage  through  the  difficulties  of  her  present  crisis. 
Let  us  therefore  hope  that  Government  will  feel  the  duty  of  lend- 
ing their  helping  hand  in  this  great  national  emergency  ;  and  that, 
to  be  enabled  for  doing  so,  they  will  have  recourse  to  a  vigorous 
direct  taxation,  both  to  meet  a  far  larger  prospective  expense 
than  they  have  yet  contemplated,  and  to  provide  for  the  deficiency 
of  the  past  expenses  which  have  already  been  incurred.  On  the 
principle  that  we  have  just  announced,  the  people  of  our  land  are 
fully  able  for  such  an  effort  and  such  a  sacrifice,  provided  only 
that  those  of  them  who  have  more  than  the  necessaries  of  life 
to  live  upon,  are  able  to  forego  a  part  of  their  luxuries.  And  this 
we  contend  is  the  single,  the  only  inconvenience,  that  would  be 
suffered,  had  we  only  the  boldness  to  face  the  present  exigency 
in  all  its  magnitude,  and  the  determination  by  means  and  meas- 
ures of  commensurate  magnitude  rightly  and  fully  to  dispose  of 
it.  The  tax-payers  would  drink  less  wine  than  before,  in  which 
proportion  there  behooved  to  be  an  abridgment  of  the  wine-trade  ; 
but  perhaps  it  will  satisfy  the  worshippers  of  commerce  as  our 
all  in  all,  to  be  told  that  in  very  proportion  the  corn-trade  might 
be  extended  ;  and  our  alarmists  for  the  shipping  interest  to  be  told, 
that  the  same,  nay  a  far  greater  amount  of  shipping,  is  required 
for  the  importation  of  grain  than  of  the  costlier  articles  which 
come  to  us  from  abroad.  It  is  demonstrable  that  in  the  conse- 
quent state  of  things  which  would  ensue  from  a  heavy  direct  tax- 
ation on  all  above  the  working-classes,  we  should  behold  as  great 
a  population  as  fully  employed  and  as  well  maintained  as  before ; 
and  that  the  whole  effect  of  this  altered  direction  in  the  expendi- 
ture of  the  country's  wealth,  were  the  loss  of  certain  personal  in- 
dulgences to  the  higher  classes,  but  with  the  gain  it  might  be  in 
return  for  it  of  nobler  objects — as  the  defence  of  a  country  against 
foreign  invasion,  or  the  establishment  of  a  better  economy  within 
its  borders.  We  have  long  advocated  the  law  of  primogeniture, 
and  can  sympathize  with  the  pleasure  and  the  pride  which  were 
felt  by  Edmund  Burke,  in  the  glorious  aristocracy  of  England. 
But  nothing,  we  are  persuaded,  would  more  conduce  to  the  sta- 
bility of  their  order — nothing  remove  further  the  evil  day,  when 
their  candlestick  shall  be  taken  out  of  its  place — than  their  willing 
surrender  though  but  in  part  of  such  enjoyments  as  might  well  be 
suspended,  to  the  demands  of  patriotism  and  the  public  weal. 
This  willingness  can  only  have  its  full  expression  and  effect  by 
the  collective  voice  and  through  the  organ  of  Parliament.  They 
may  provide  for  the  stupendous  design  of  setting  up  a  right  econ- 
omy in  Ireland  by  loans  ;  and  we  should  rather  they  did,  than 
that  Ireland  should  be  left  as  hitherto  to  flounder  on  as  she  best 


POLITICAL    ECONOMY    OF    A    FAMINE.  531 

may.     But  our  own  decided  preference  is  for  a  vigorous  and  di- 
rect taxation. 

But  ere  we  carry  our  proposals  any  further,  let  us  here  advert 
to  the  probable  effect  which  the  establishment  of  the  Free-Trade 
system  is  likely  to  have  for  a  season  on  our  economists  and  states- 
men. The  imagination  is,  that  it  will  enlarge  indefinitely  the 
powers  of  commerce ;  and  so  the  tendency  in  men's  minds  will 
be  to  magnify,  we  had  almost  said  to  deify,  commerce  all  the 
more — as  if  it  were  the  primary  source  and  sovereign  dispenser 
of  all  the  blessings  which  serve  to  strengthen  or  enrich  a  nation. 
The  very  famine  wherewith  we  have  been  visited  might  serve  to 
correct  and  sober  down  these  anticipations  ;  and  to  convince  us 
that  commerce  is  not  the  fountain-head,  but  that  agriculture  is 
the  fountain-head,  and  commerce  but  the  derivative  stream  or  the 
derived  and  dependent  reservoir.  Even  Dr.  Smith,  notwithstand- 
ing his  own  masterly  exposure  of  the  mercantile  system,  was  so 
far  carried  away  by  his  favorite  principle,  the  more  endeared  to 
him  that  he  himself  was  its  parent  and  its  discoverer,  as  unduly 
to  exalt  at  times  the  prerogatives  and  powers  of  merchandise. 
And  yet  there  is  one  memorable  sentence  of  his  which  should  help 
to  keep  us  right — that  the  great  end  of  all  production  is  consump- 
tion. Did  we  but  retain  our  steady  hold  of  this  maxim,  and  make 
at  all  times  the  right  application  of  it,  it  would  raise  us  to  a  higher 
and  more  commanding  position  for  a  correct  survey  of  the  whole 
question.  Commerce  would  be  assigned  its  true  place,  if  we  made 
our  estimate  of  its  importance  to  turn  on  the  benefit  which  ac- 
crued from  the  use  of  his  resulting  commodities — if  we  fixed  our 
eye  on  the  qui  bono,  and  terminus  ad  quern,  of  its  various  pro- 
cesses. It  would  reduce  Political  Economy  to  its  just  dimensions, 
so  that  it  should  no  longer  monopolize  the  whole  field  of  vision, 
to  the  subordination  or  the  exclusion  of  higher  interests  than  its 
own.  We  are  hopeful  that  had  this  consideration  been  present 
in  the  mind  of  Mr.  Trevelyan,  it  would  have  saved  him  from  the 
single  error  into  which  we  think  he  has  fallen  throughout  the  whole 
of  a  correspondence,  characterized  all  along  on  his  part  by  signal 
ability  and  the  most  enlightened  economical  views — for  then  we 
apprehend  that  he  would  not  in  mere  deference  to  the  Free-Trade 
principle,  have  advocated  as  he  has  done  the  continuance  of  dis- 
tilleries.* On  the  question — How  is  it  best  that  our  grain  should 
be  consumed  1  Better,  we  shall  ever  contend,  in  a  crisis  like  the 
present ;  better  in  bread  to  the  people,  than  in  liquors  for  the  good 
cheer  of  England,  or  the  nauseous  dissipation  of  Scotland,  or  even 
in  the  animal  food  on  which  Burke  grounds  his  argument  in  be- 
half of  distillation.  Nay,  so  far  do  we  carry  our  views  on  this 
matter,  we  should  hold  it  greatly  better  that  the  families  in  the 
metropolis  of  Ireland  were  put  on  bread  and  water,  instead  of 

*  Irish  Correspondence  (Commissariat  Series),  pp.  106,  107. 


532  POLITICAL    ECONOMY    Of    A    FAMINE. 

bread  and  milk  or  bread  with  butter  on  it,  rather  than  that  families 
in  the  provinces  should  be  left  without  bread  altogether.  We 
make  every  allowance  for  the  want  of  time  and  preparation  and 
precise  knowledge  throughout  the  year  that  is  past ;  but  it  will  be 
an  indelible  disgrace,  if  in  another  year  the  Irish  shall  be  again 
left  to  die  in  thousands,  that  the  Scotch  might  luxuriate  in  spirits, 
and  the  English  in  their  potations  of  beer  as  usual. 

But  we  must  now  hasten  to  a  close — yet  not  stirely,  it  might 
well  be  thought,  without  at  least  breaking  ground  on  the  ques- 
tion— What  is  to  be  done  for  Ireland  and  the  Highlands  of  Scot- 
land ? 

And  we  are  not  ashamed  to  confess  that  at  present  we  have  no 
inclination  to  do  more  than  break  ground  upon  these  questions. 
Jt  might  be  a  very  lengthened  process,  and  one  of  very  many 
steps  or  stages,  by  which  to  come  at  last  to  the  establishment 
of  a  good  permanent  economy  for  either  of  these  countries;  and 
therefore  it  might  be  presumptuous  and  premature  to  venture  on 
an  out-and-out  description  of  the  whole  of  it.  But  though  unwil- 
ling, and  perhaps  unable,  to  furnish  a  guide-book  for  all  the  thou- 
sand miles  of  this  way — yet  if  perfectly  sure,  though  even  of  but 
the  first  mile,  it  were  doubtless  of  importance  to  be  told  of  it, 
more  especially  if  at  the  end  of  this  first  mile,  we  shall  be  in  all 
the  better  circumstances  by  the  way  opening  before  us  as  we 
proceed  on  it,  for  ascertaining  the  ulterior  direction  of  the  journey. 
It  is  good,  nay  indispensable,  ere  we  go  forth  on  an  expedition  for 
some  distant  landing  place,  that  we  should  know  what  is  the 
right  point  of  departure,  and  how  to  make  a  right  outset.  The 
way  to  be  wrong  throughout  is  to  make  a  wrong  commencement. 

First,  then,  we  should  hold  it  as  a  good  outset  principle  that  the 
question  before  us  is  clearly  an  imperial  one,  to  be  prosecuted 
and  to  a  great  extent  carried  into  effect  by  imperial  means — 
though  to  a  certain  extent  by  local  means  also,  and  this  in  as 
great  a  proportion  as  might  secure  the  vigilance  and  helpful  co- 
operation of  the  landowners,  by  the  interest  which  they  are 
made  personally  to  feel  in  their  wise  and  economical  administra- 
tion. We  cannot  image  a  worse  preparative  for  any  systems 
of  future  ameliorations,  than  to  begin  either  with  such  acts  or 
such  refusals  as  are  fitted  to  strike  despair  into  the  hearts 
whether  of  our  Highland  or  our  Irish  proprietary.  Notwith- 
standing all  the  ungenerous,  and  all  the  flagrantly  impolitic  abuse 
that  has  been  heaped  upon  them,  particularly  in  Ireland,  these  are 
the  parties  on  whom  we  must  principally  draw  for  good  local 
agencies,  without  which  Government  will  be  utterly  helpless  for 
the  right  execution  of  its  measures.  But  how  can  we  expect 
that  they  will  enter  with  any  heart  or  hopefulness  upon  the  task, 
if  burdens  are  to  be  laid  and  measures  to  be  adopted,  tantamount 
in  their  belief  to  the  confiscation  of  all  which  belongs  to  them? 
To  decree  such  a  revolution  in  property  as  this  were  to  legalize 


POLITICAL    ECONOMY    OF    A    FAMINE.  533 

a  wholesale  anarchy,  and  bring  all  into  confusion.  The  clear 
wisdom  of  Government  is  to  gain  the  confidence  ?nd  good-will 
of  those  who  de  facto  are  lords  of  the  soil ;  and  this  can  only  be 
done  by  convincing  them  that  although  it  will  not  give  way  to 
indefinite  rapacity  and  clamor,  its  honest  purpose  is  so  to  devise 
and  to  regulate  as  that  their  country  shall  be  worth  the  living  in, 
and  their  estates  be  still  worth  the  having. 

We  exceedingly  lament  that  this  principle  has  been  disregarded, 
or  rather  wholly  traversed,  in  the  late  decisions  of  Parliament  on 
the  subject  of  an  Irish  poor-law.*  We  should  have  thought  that 
there  was  enough  to  be  done  in  devising  for  the  present  and 
pressing  exigencies  of  this  awful  crisis — how  best  to  provide 
relief  for  the  destitute,  and  to  enforce  the  current  agriculture  of 
the  country,  and  so  to  extend  it  as  to  compensate  for  the  loss 
of  the  potato.  Amid  such  urgent  and  besetting  cares,  it  seems 
to  us  that  it  was  shooting  too  far  a-head,  too  far  into  the  pros- 
pective, to  embark  in  a  hasty  and  hap-hazard  legislation,  and 
this  too  in  measures  of  a  permanent  character — mixing  up  these 

*  The  following  is  the  testimony  of  a  most  unexceptionable  and  intelligent  witness,  to 
the  effect  of  our  new  Scottish  poor-law  in  the  Highlands.  "  In  regard  to  the  bad  feeling  on 
the  part  of  ratepayers  towards  the  poor,  the  thing  is  so  notorious  in  Ross-shire,  that  you 
are  welcome  to  give  me  as  authority  for  it  to  any  who  ask.  I  know  districts  where  the 
poor  cottars  formerly  supported  their  pauper  neighbors  most  cheerfully,  and  had  the 
kindest  possible  feeling  towards  them,  where  a  day  rarely  passed  without  a  call  from 
some  pauper  for  food  or  lodging,  and  in  many  situations  where  the  burden  from  these 
calls  was  very  great  indeed,  yet  borne  without  a  single  thought  of  complaint.  In  the 
same  districts,  now,  when  the  legal  assessment  is  in  force,  where  it  may  not  amount  to 
6d.  in  £1  of  rent,  these  same  individuals,  who  under  the  old  system  were  contributing 
perhaps  2s.  6d.  for  £1  voluntarily,  have  come  to  hate  the  very  sight  of  a  pauper,  and 
curse  them  openly  and  loudly.  The  very  paupers  themselves  feel  the  change  so  much, 
that  I  have  known  some  who  have  insisted  on  being  put  off  the  roll,  for  no  other  reason 
than  the  hatred  shown  to  them  by  their  former  kind  neighbors."  Had  it  not  been  for 
this  recent  piece  of  English  legislation,  private  charity  in  the  Highlands  would  have 
flowed  more  sweetly  and  productively  than  it  has  done  in  the  present  distress.  We 
may  here  state  what  our  preferences  would  have  been  had  there  either  been  no  poor-rate 
in  Ireland ;  or  had  the  poor-rate  been  held  inapplicable  to  all  cases  of  destitution  which 
offered,  after  that  the  work-houses  were  filled.  These  we  should  have  divided  into  two 
classes,  the  able,  and  the  not  able  to  work.  The  former  we  would  have  devolved  on  a 
legal  fund  made  up  of  two-thirds  from  the  Treasury,  and  one-third  from  the  parties  who 
whether  in  town  or  country  are  made  liable  for  the  poor.  The  fund  thus  raised  would 
of  course  be  expended  on  the  excess  of  the  wages  above  the  value  of  the  work,  that  value 
being  paid  for  by  those  for  whose  benefit  it  was  done.  The  latter  class,  or  the  unable  to 
work,  we  should  have  devolved  on  the  spontaneous  charities  of  the  benevolent,  stimula- 
ted by  an  additional  allowance  from  the  Government  of  pound  for  pound.  Such  is  a  very 
feneral  outline  of  our  scheme ;  and  we  should  be  quite  willing,  that  in  what  regards  the 
rst  class,  the  parties  who  should  support  them  and  the  proportions  that  should  fall  on 
each  were  regulated  according  to  any  other  process  of  adjustment  which  might  be 
deemed  more  advisable.  But  we  hold  it  of  capital  importance  that  the  legal  and  the  volun- 
tary should  not  be  compounded  into  one  sum,  and  expended  jointly  on  the  same  objects. 
Upon  this  footing  the  voluntary  dwindles  into  insignificance — whereas  if  provided  with 
distinct  objects  of  its  own,  and  these  devolved  upon  it  wholly,  it  would  rise  with  the  ac- 
tual necessities  which  it  had  been  called  upon  to  relieve,  and  prove  itself  equal  to  the 
task.  We  have  no  doubt  that  under  such  an  arrangement  the  streams  of  benevolence 
flowing  in  upon  the  Voluntary  Relief  Committees  from  all  parts  of  the  empire  would 
have  adequately  met  the  destitution  in  this  branch  of  it.  One  incalculable  benefit  of  such 
a  division  in  the  work  is  that  it  secures  most  important  additions  to  the  agency,  and 
agency  of  the  best  sort  too  for  the  weak  and  the  helpless — we  mean  that  of  ladies. 


534  POLITICAL    ECONOMY     OF    A    FAMINE. 

with  measures  of  immediate  necessity.  If  the  object  was  to  com- 
pel an  instant  assessment  on  the  land  more  commensurate  to  the 
existing  destitution,  could  not  this  have  been  done  by  a  special 
and  temporary  provision,  without  making  a  general  and  enduring 
change  on  the  state  of  the  Irish  poor-law  ?  Or  is  such  a  season 
of  perplexity  and  pressure,  when  extraordinary  visitations  should 
be  met  by  means  alike  extraordinary — is  this  the  time  for  building 
up  another  system  for  the  ordinary  relief  of  the  poor?  Better, 
we  do  think,  that  emergencies  like  the  present  were  met  by  the 
operations  of  some  such  expedients  as  did  not  leave  one  trace  of 
themselves  upon  the  statute-book.  We  are  sensible  of  an  honest 
anxiety  on  the  part  of  rulers  that  the  destitution  should  be  pro- 
vided for,  but  provided  for  with  the  lowest  minimum  of  allow- 
ances from  the  Treasury.  Of  this  we  have  had  abundant  expe- 
rience in  Scotland.  Yet  we  cannot  sympathize  with  the  form 
of  the  complaint,  that  so  little  is  doing  for  us,  while  so  much  is 
doing  for  Ireland.  There  is  not  too  much ;  and  it  would  com- 
port better  with  the  dignity  of  our  great  nation,  and  the  ampli- 
tude of  its  resources,  that  it  did  a  great  deal  more.  Rather  than 
that  Ireland  should  fall  into  the  hands  of  France,  we  would  read- 
ily embark  in  a  war  of  life  or  death,  though  at  the  expense  as  in 
other  wars  of  five  hundred  millions — yes,  and  whether  by  dint 
of  loans  or  rigorous  direct  taxation,  we  could  summon  into  our 
national  coffers  every  farthing  of  the  money.  After  this,  to  speak 
of  its  not  being  a  national  object,  that  for  a  tithe  of  the  sum  which 
has  now  been  specified,  we  should  put  Ireland  into  a  right  eco- 
nomic condition,  or  though  at  the  expense  of  fifty  millions  spread 
over  a  few  years,  we  should  enter  on  that  regenerate  process 
by  which  to  transmute  our  sister  country  into  a  prosperous  and 
smiling  land. 

It  is  really  not  the  way  to  govern  a  country,  or  to  effect  for  it 
on  extrication  from  its  difficulties,  that  it  shall  be  left  to  drift 
along,  the  sport  and  the  plaything  of  merest  accidents — for  what 
else  but  accidents  are  those  extemporaneous  measures  which 
are  suggested  on  the  spur  of  an  occasion  ;  and  then  further  con- 
cocted or  modified  at  random  amid  the  impulses  and  stormy  de- 
bates of  a  popular  assembly.  Better  surely  than  these  were  the 
calm  and  leisurely  and  deliberate  inquiries  of  a  Parliamentary 
Commission,  vested  at  the  same  time  with  administrative  functions, 
and  furnished  both  with  adequate  means  and  adequate  powers  for 
the  fulfilment  of  the  objects  which  are  intrusted  to  it.*  Such  a  del- 
egated body  should  have  a  large  discretion  and  dictatorship  given 
to  it,  of  defined  boundaries  no  doubt,  but  still  very  ample  notwith- 
standing— because  with  this  guarantee  for  the  safety  of  their  pro- 

*  Of  course  when  we  speak  of  a  Commission  vested  with  the  discretionary  expendi- 
ture of  money,  we  suppose  the  object  of  this  expenditure  to  be  previously  defined  by 
Parliament,  and  a  certain  maximum  sum  intrusted  for  the  wise  and  economical  fulfil- 
ment of  them.    It  may  in  the  first  instance  be  a  Commission  of  Inquiry. 


POLITICAL    ECONOMY    OF    A    FAMINE.  535 

ceedings,  the  weight  and  wisdom  of  those  who  had  been  selected 
to  form  it.  They  in  fact  should  be  the  most  choice  men  both 
of  Britain  and  Ireland,  not  fixed  upon  because  of  any  eminence 
they  had  won  in  the  political  arena,  whether  in  or  out  of  Par- 
liament, for  economics  do  not  form  the  vocation  of  such — nei- 
ther should  we  very  confidently  look  for  a  sound  economics  at 
their  hand.  What  we  should  most  desiderate  were  men  in  our 
sister  country,  of  such  a  type  as  Lord  George  Hill  and  Mr.  Ham- 
ilton of  St.  Ernan,  and  without  expressly  naming  any  similar  to 
these  of  our  own  country,  we  should  greatly  rejoice  in  a  sprink- 
ling of  the  Friends,  those  men  of  primitive  worth  and  withal  of 
careful  and  conscientious  business  habits,  whose  mission  to  Ireland 
is  one  of  the  noblest  achievements  in  the  annals  of  Philanthropy. 
These  are  the  very  men  who  in  all  the  outlays  and  improvements 
could  institute  a  right  composition  between  the  Government  and 
the  land  owners.  The  expense  on  the  whole  to  the  State  might 
turn  out  to  be  somewhat  greater  or  vastly  less  than  what  we  have 
ventured  to  name  ;  but  whether  great  or  little,  there  is  one  guid- 
ing principle  they  should  never  lose  hold  of— and  that  is  to  re- 
press the  inordinate  expectations  both  of  Irish  gentry  and  the  Irish 
common  people,  and  this  on  the  ground  that  no  people  can  be 
effectually  helped  who  will  do  little  or  nothing  to  help  themselves. 
The  terminus  ad  quern,  in  fact,  of  the  whole  movement  should  be  to 
establish  an  all-sufficiency  for  the  people  in  their  own  industry  and 
their  own  good  management.  It  should  be  a  firm  while  a  merci- 
ful regime  that  is  to  be  exercised  over  them,  under  which  none 
of  the  helpless  should  be  allowed  to  perish,  and  none  of  the  able- 
bodied  be  exempt  from  the  rule,  that  "  if  any  will  not  work  neither 
shall  they  eat."  All  rioting  against  the  piece-work  on  which  they 
might  comfortably  live,  if  judged  to  be  better  for  them  than  the 
day's  wages  on  which  they  might  idle  and  starve — must  be  vig- 
orously put  down.  No  political  economy,  however  sound,  can 
be  of  any  avail,  when  there  is  a  weak  Government  or  a  worthless 
people.  But  we  hope  better  things.  We  have  no  taste  or  sym- 
pathy for  those  tirades  against  the  Irish  which  in  the  day  of  their 
sore  visitation  have  so  disgraced  the  hostile  newspapers  of  Eng- 
land. Among  them  are  many  of  the  finest  and  noblest  specimens 
of  humanity  ;  and  thousands  are  the  hearts  and  consciences  there 
which  will  most  readily  accord  with  a  Government  resolved  upon 
their  good,  though  equally  resolved  not  to  falter  on  its  path,  nor 
be  driven  from  the  right  and  the  reasonable  in  the  accomplishment 
of  its  beneficent  and  well-laid  plans.  Never  was  there  an  oppor- 
tunity of  greater  likelihood  for  those  measures  which  might  usher 
in  the  future  well-being  of  Ireland.  All  party  and  political  vio- 
lence is  abated.  All  factitious  grievances  are  forgotten  in  the 
overwhelming  grievance  that  has  been  laid  direct  by  the  hand 
of  God  on  this  sorely  stricken  people.  Now  is  the  time  for  Bri- 
tain to  step  forward  ;  and  without  the  surrender  either  of  autho- 


536  POLITICAL    ECONOMY    OF    A    FAMINE. 

rity  or  wisdom,  to  acquit  herself  generously,  openly,  freely  towards 
Ireland — and  by  her  acts  of  princely  but  well-directed  munifi- 
cence to  repair  the  accumulated  wrongs  of  many  generations. 
The  chastisements  of  this  dreary  period  have  not  been  joyous,  but 
grievous  ;  but  thus  might  they  be  made  to  yield  the  peaceful 
fruits  of  righteousness  to  those  who  have  been  exercised  thereby. 
But  ere  that  we  bid  adieu  to  the  subject  for  the  present,  let  us 
be  somewhat  more  specific.  They  who  have  read  the  concluding 
article  of  our  last  Number  will  have  acquired  from  it  some  idea 
of  the  manifold  rectifications  and  adjustments  that  must  be  made, 
ere  the  confusion  can  be  unravelled  which  obtains  in  the  state  of 
landed  property  throughout  Ireland,  and  in  all  the  tenures  by  which 
it  is  held.  We  are  aware  of  a  commission  upon  this  subject,  the 
report  of  whose  labors,  however,  we  have  not  yet  seen.  But  the 
Commission  that  we  would  have,  should  have  a  great  deal  more 
to  do  than  to  investigate.  It  should  be  furnished  with  means  to 
aid  the  disencumbrance  of  the  land.  For  example  it  might  assist 
the  minor  proprietor  by  loan  or  otherwise  to  effect  an  equitable 
compromise  with  those  who  possess  a  tenant-right  to  very  small 
holdings.  Or  it  may  help  him  to  emigrate  the  superfluous  fami- 
lies on  his  estate.*  In  the  course  of  its  statistical  inquiries,  which 
cannot  be  prosecuted  too  minutely  or  too  thoroughly,  other  ame- 
liorations will  open  on  its  view  which  with  both  the  power  and 
the  will  to  do  good,  it  might  not  only  suggest  but  carry  into  ac- 
complishment. In  short,  a  complete  survey,  and  as  complete  a 
study  founded  upon  that  survey,  should  be  made  of  Ireland.  Had 
we  known  as  much  a  year  ago,  as  we  should  now  set  ourselves 
to  learn  and  might  acquire  in  two  or  three  months,  it  might  have 
kept  us  from  many  errors,  and  perhaps  anticipated  all  the  starva- 
tions. In  the  face  of  such  an  argument  as  this,  it  were  worse 
than  strange,  it  were  shameful,  to  decline  the  enterprise,  on  the 
score  either  of  its  expense  or  its  difficulty.     The  lives  of  millions 

*  We  are  aware  of  an  apprehension  lest  a  Government  Scheme  of  Emigration  subject 
the  country  to  expense  for  those  who  would  otherwise  emigrate  of  themselves.  But  who 
are  they  1 — families  that  possess  means  of  their  own,  and  whose  abandonment  of  Ireland 
is  of  no  advantage  to  it.  The  distinction  surely  is  in  such  instances  palpable  enough  be- 
tween those  who  have  the  means  and  those  who  have  it  not ;  and  they  are  the  latter  of 
course  only  for  whose  emigration  Government  would  undertake,  in  conjunction  when 
possible  with  those  landed  proprietors  whose  estates  would  be  relieved  by  it  either  of  its 
squatters  or  its  very  small  holders.  The  following  is  an  interesting  notice  from  Saun- 
ders' News-Letter  of  the  5th  April.  "  From  the  Derry  Castle  and  Burgess  estate,  Killa- 
loe,  100  poor  families,  averaging  500  persons,  gladly  surrendered  their  small  holdings  to 
the  proprietor,  Francis  Spaight,  Esq.,  who  this  week  provided  300  of  them  a  free  pass- 
age, with  sea  store  for  the  voyage,  on  board  the  Jane  Black  from  Quebec,  where  they 
are  to  be  landed  free  of  all  charge,  with  the  intention  of  settling  in  Canada  as  farm  la- 
borers. The  remainder  of  this  cottier  tenantry,  who  grew  up  as  mere  squatters  on  the 
estate,  will  follow  in  other  vessels  this  month,  and  right  glad  of"  the  opportunity  and  con- 
ditions for  which  the  poor  people  express  their  gratitude." 

Such  emigration  must  falicitate  the  desirable  ameliorations  which  have  yet  to  be  made 
on  the  system  of  leases,  and  we  suspect  also  on  the  tenures  of  land.  But  how  sadly  a 
bad  measure  conflicts  with  a  good  one.  The  ordination  of  out-door  relief  in  Ireland  acta 
with  antagonistic  force  on  the  wholesome  desire  of  the  people  for  emigration. 


POLITICAL    ECONOMY    OF    A    FAMINE.  537 

may  depend  upon  it.  Ignorance  might  be  pleaded  in  extenuation  ; 
we  are  willing  to  entertain  it  as  an  excuse  for  the  deaths  of  last 
year.  Let  these  be  repeated  another  year,  and  if  from  the  same 
cause,  our  disgrace  will  be  indelible.  It  was  creditable  to  the 
science  of  Government  when  they  overruled  the  paltry  economy 
which  would  have  laid  an  arrest  on  the  Trigonometrical  Survey. 
The  call  is  vastly  more  imperative — the  national  honor,  because 
the  national  humanity  more  loudly  demands  it — that  Government 
should  forthwith  set  themselves  to  know  the  subject  with  which 
they  are  dealing  ;  and  however  costly  or  numerous  the  agencies 
for  carrying  forward  the  work  piecemeal  from  county  to  county, 
and  from  parish  to  parish,  they  should  from  this  moment  institute 
and  enter  with  all  vigor  on  the  Economical  Survey  of  Ireland.* 

Meanwhile  we  cannot  imagine  a  more  egregious  impolicy  than 
to  have  conjured  up  a  new  Poor-law  for  the  occasion  ;  or,  in  or- 
der to  meet  the  exigencies  of  a  passing  and  rare  disaster,  instead 

*  See  an  able  and  interesting  paper  by  Samuel  Ferguson,  Esq.,  on  the  expediency  of 
taking  stock — a  lesson  as  imperative,  we  should  think,  at  the  end  of  the  coming  har- 
vest as  of  the  last.  We  hold  him  to  be  perfectly  sound  on  the  stoppage  of  the  distilleries, 
though  we  demur  to  his  proposal  for  the  prohibition  of  all  exports  of  food.  We  prefer 
the  doctrine  of  Mr.  Hancock  on  the  latter  of  these  two  questions,  yet  we  cannot  acqui- 
esce in  the  reasoning  by  which  he  supports  it — a  reasoning  that,  if  sound,  would  be 
equally  valid  against  the  stoppage  of  the  distilleries — a  measure  that  might  also  be  con- 
ceived to  bring  down  the  prices  from  70s.  to  50s.  a  quarter,  and  so  furnish  Mr.  Hancock 
with  the  very  same  data  and  guide  him  to  the  very  same  conclusion  against  the  stoppage 
of  the  distilleries  as  against  the  prohibition  of  food  exports.  But  to  make  it  available  for 
the  relief  of  the  very  poorest  we  must  do  more  than  stop  the  distilleries — we  must  fur- 
nish them  with  money  to  purchase  the  now  disengaged  food.  The  mere  fall  of  prices 
might  be  a  relief  to  those  who  can  afford  to  pay  50s.  but  not  70s.  per  quarter ;  but  it 
were  no  relief  to  those  who  have  no  money  at  all.  Say  then  that  by  public  works  or 
otherwise  they  get  as  much  money  in  their  hands  as  to  purchase  all  the  food  which  the 
distilleries  would  have  consumed.  Then  there  would  have  been  no  fall  of  prices.  The 
money  of  these  new  customers  would  have  had  the  same  elevating  effect  on  the  corn- 
market  which  the  money  of  the  distillers  had  before.  But  if  they  received  the  same 
money  without  any  stoppage  of  the  distilleries,  then  the  prices  might  have  risen  from  70s 
to  90s.,  and  the  general  community  would  have  suffered.  Let  the  distilleries  be  stopped, 
then  the  destitution  might  be  more  cheaply  relieved  and  without  the  burden  of  a  higher 
price  on  the  classes  above  them.  But  let  the  distilleries  not  be  stopped,  then  the  destitu- 
tion cannot  be  relieved  without  a  rise  in  prices  and  so  a  burden  on  the  higher  classes. 
The  Government  money  which  went  into  the  pockets  of  farmers'  sons  who  ought  not  to 
have  been  on  the  works,  and  which  went  to  the  Savings'  Banks — this  had  no  effect  in 
raising  prices.  Had  that  money  all  gone  where  it  was  intended,  to  feed  the  really  desti- 
tute and  keep  them  from  perishing  of  hunger,  the  prices  would  have  risen  more  than 
they  did,  and  we  should  have  rejoiced  in  a  rise  proceeding  from  such  a  cause.  Had  the 
distilleries  been  stopped,  and  money  to  purchase  the  grain  now  consumed  by  them  been 
transferred  for  the  relief  of  hunger,  prices  would  have  been  unchanged ;  and  the  simple 
unembarrassed  question  is  this — Whether  it  be  better  that  grain  should  have  been  con- 
sumed in  distilleries,  or  consumed  in  the  houses  and  by  the  families  of  the  destitute  1 
By  the  way,  it  must  be  gratifying  to  Mr.  Trevelyan,  who  at  an  early  part  of  the  Corres- 
pondence reasoned  so  ably  on  the  benefits  of  a  high  price,  to  observe  the  practical  tri- 
umph of  his  argument  in  the  magnificent  importations  since  of  food  from  America — to  a 
tenfold  greater  extent  than  ever  Government  could  have  achieved.  It  remains,  however, 
to  be  seen  whether  even  these  importations  will  make  good  an  adequate  supply  for  us. 

It  might  perhaps  reconcile  Mr.  Ferguson  to  a  free  trade  in  corn,  were  he  to  examine  the 
Liverpool  Tables  issued  from  the  Corn  Exchange  there.  In  one  week  last  month  taken 
at  random  there  were  exported  from  Ireland  to  Liverpool  381  quarters  of  wheat;  but  to 
balance  this,  there  were  exported  from  Liverpool  to  Ireland  in  the  same  week  4869  quar- 
ters. 

G8 


538  POLITICAL    ECONOMY    OF    A    FAMINE. 

of  a  temporary  make-shift,  to  have  devised  a  thing  of  permanent 
institution  and  ordained  it  to  be  of  perpetual  force  and  operation 
in  all  time  coming.  It  was  right  to  set  up  in  every  locality  of 
Ireland  a  gateway  of  relief  for  the  people  from  the  destitution  of 
this  most  extraordinary  year.  But  it  was  not  right,  it  is  most 
grievously  and  we  fear  irreparably  wrong,  to  tell  the  people  that 
this  is  the  very  gateway  by  which  they  are  to  seek  and  to  find 
relief  in  every  future  year  which  lies  before  them.  It  is  not  pos- 
sible to  conceive  a  likelier  expedient  for  the  wholesale  initiation 
of  a  people  into  the  worst  of  habits,  or  for  plunging  the  country 
instanter,  and  from  one  end  to  the  other  of  it,  into  a  universal  and 
inveterate  pauperism.  Verily,  England  has  not  yet  gotten  her 
own  legislation  for  the  poor  into  such  a  state  of  settlement  and 
perfection  as  at  all  entitles  her  to  palm  it  upon  us  ;  or  to  distem- 
per, as  she  has  done,  the  social  systems  both  of  Scotland  and  Ire- 
land, by  the  contention  of  her  own  inveterate  malady.  The 
method  of  relief  for  the  present  should  have  been  made  as  pecul- 
iar as  the  emergency  itself  is  peculiar — mainly  we  hold  at  the 
expense  of  Government,  as  say  in  the  proportion  of  two  to 
one  ;  but  partly  at  the  expense  of  the  land-owners,  and  which,  if 
they  are  not  able  to  pay  at  the  time,  should  be  charged  in  the 
form  of  a  mortgage  upon  their  estates.  Meanwhile  all  changes 
and  improvements  on  the  ordinary  poor-law  should  have  been 
kept  in  abeyance — so  that  every  injurious  effect  would  disappear, 
after  that  the  special  visitation  had  passed  away,  and  the  tempo- 
rary as  well  as  special  apparatus  raised  to  provide  for  it  had  been 
taken  down  and  removed  from  the  eyes  of  the  people. 

Nevertheless  our  proposed  Commission  should,  among  their 
other  labors,  be  tasked  with  the  duty  of  fully  preparing  themselves 
on  the  question  of  a  Poor-law.  And  most  assuredly  if  either 
Ireland  or  Scotland  is  to  be  bettered  by  their  inquiries  and  lucu- 
brations on  such  a  topic,  England  will  receive  a  benefit  from  them 
also — as  little  independent  as  either  of  these  countries  of  the  fur- 
ther lights  which  experience  or  principle  might  cast  upon  the  sub- 
ject. This  is  a  topic  on  which  we  would  reserve  ourselves  for 
the  ample  opportunities  that  will  occur  for  the  discussion  of  it  in 
future  Numbers  of  this  work.  We  would  rather  append  any 
view  or  opinion  of  ours  to  the  Report  of  a  Commission  than  to  the 
debates  of  a  senate-house  ;  and  were  men  only  content  to  wait 
the  slow  processes  of  diligent  investigation,  and  of  earnest  patient 
thought,  it  would  save  us  from  a  world  of  crude  legislation  in  Par- 
liament, as  well  as  of  crude  and  hasty  speculation  out  of  doors. 

But  one  word  more  of  this  Commission — the  only  effectual  sort 
of  machinery,  we  do  think,  if  but  well  put  together  and  well 
worked,  for  effecting  an  extrication  from  our  present  difficulties 
— by  leading  to  the  establishment  of  a  right  economic  state  both 
in  Ireland  and  our  own  Highlands.  We  in  the  first  place  would 
have  it  invested  with  an  ample  sufficiency  of  means,  whether 


POLITICAL    ECONOMY    OF    A     FAMINE.  539 

present  or  prospective,  and  in  the  conscious  possession  of  these — so 
as  not  to  shrink  as  do  all  our  Government  officers  at  present,  from 
every  proposal  which  involves  in  it  the  least  expenditure  <>f 
money  ;  but,  with  the  feeling  that  its  vocation  is  to  work  out  re- 
forms on  a  large  scale,  not  to  be  startled  by  the  magnitude  of  any 
scheme,  or  with  sensitive  alarm  to  throw  it  overboard,  and  with- 
out investigation,  if  at  all  likely  to  yield  the  money's  worth  f<j<: 
the  money  bestowed  on  it.  But  in  the  second  place,  we  would 
have  it  armed  with  sufficient  resolution  and  sufficient  strength  tu 
put  down  the  clamor  and  the  cupidity,  and  it  may  be  the  occa- 
sional violence,  excited  by  the  imagination  of  its  unbounded  re- 
sources, and  of  the  facility  with  which  it  might  give  way  to  every 
application.  We  hope  that  it  would  soon  show  itself  to  have  no 
such  facility ;  and  that  while  conscious  of  the  greatness  of  its 
means,  it  was  alike  conscious  of  the  great  things  which  it  had  to 
do  with  them.  In  the  third  place,  we  would  have  it  ever  to  ac- 
quit itself  as  the  resolute  protector  of  the  most  helpless,  both 
against  the  upper  classes  on  the  one  hand,  and  against  those  of 
the  lower  classes  who  are  not  so  helpless  as  they, — and  this  that 
not  a  human  creature  shall  perish  from  want,  an  object  on  which 
the  hearts  of  our  rulers  have  been  set  from  the  first,  but  in  which 
they  have  been  thwarted  by  difficulties  that  we  trust  they  will 
now  know  how  to  overcome.  And  lastly,  as  the  reward  of  its 
perseverance  in  a  right  and  reasonable  way,  we  should  calcu- 
late that  the  public  respect  and  the  public  confidence  would  at 
length  go  along  with  them,  till  they  arrived  at  their  landing  place, 
the  great  terminus  ad  quern  of  their  appointment — to  relieve  the 
countries  on  which  they  operate  from  the  pressure  that  now  lies 
upon  them,  and  to  effect  such  adjustments  between  the  various 
orders  of  society,  and  more  especially  between  landlords  and  ten- 
ants, as  that,  raised  from  the  state  of  beggary  and  dependence, 
they  might  in  all  time  coming  be  a  well-conditioned  and  self-sus- 
taining people. 

There  is  one  question  on  which  grieved  and  outraged  humanity 
seeks  to  be  appeased,  and  demands  satisfaction.  Why  is  it  that, 
on  the  one  hand,  there  should  be  such  numerous  deaths  by  star- 
vation, while,  on  the  other,  there  is  such  abundance  of  means, 
and  along  with  it  the  most  earnest  and  longing  desire  that  this 
fearful  calamity  should  be  mitigated  to  the  uttermost  ?  Several 
reasons  might  be  adduced  for  this  most  perplexing  and  piteous  phe- 
nomenon ;  but  we  shall  only  state  two.  First,  the  dispensers  of 
benevolence  from  without,  including  Government  among  the  num- 
ber, are  most  naturally  and  justifiably  afraid  lest  the  benevolence 
from  within  should  be  at  all  slackened  or  superseded,  or  that  in 
virtue  of  their  interference  the  operation  of  home  duties  and  home 
charities  should  at  all  be  suspended, — while,  on  the  other  hand, 
there  is  a  mighty,  and  we  should  even  call  it  a  natural,  it  may  be 
a  pardonable,  disposition  among  the  people  themselves,  to  over- 


540  POLITICAL    ECONOMY    OF    A    FAMINE. 

rate  the  magnitude  of  what  is  doing,  or  to  be  done  for  them  from 
abroad.  Between  this  fear  on  the  one  hand,  and  this  delusion  on 
the  other,  thousands  of  lives  have  been  sacrificed ;  and  yet  we 
are  not  prepared  to  say,  but  that  if  the  fear  had  not  operated  so 
as  to  make  Government  wary  in  their  proceedings,  there  might 
not  have  been  ten  deaths  by  hunger,  for  every  one  that  is  now 
recorded*  Let  us  just  imagine  that  they  had  made  gratuitous 
distribution  of  their  stores  at  Schull  and  Skibbereen  ;  and  we  have 
only  to  conceive  the  paralyzing  effect  which  the  report  of  this 
generosity  would  have  had,  not  on  the  home  charity  alone,  but 
on  the  home  and  inland  trade*  of  Ireland, — after  it  had  gone 
abroad  that  Government,  with  its  inexhaustible  treasury  and  its 
magnificent  depots,  would  overtake  all  and  provide  for  all.  There 
is  no  Government  on  earth  that  possesses  the  wealth  and  the 
power,  and  above  all,  the  ubiquity  which  might  enable  it  to  coun- 
tervail the  mischief  of  so  ruinous  a  dependence,  if  it  once  per- 
vaded, and  among  all  ranks,  too,  the  entire  mass  of  a  country's 
population.  But  there  is  a  single  sentence  in  the  last  Report  of 
the  Friends,  these  noble-hearted  men  of  undoubted  Christian 
worth,  but  of  wisdom  along  with  it,  which  throws  a  flood  of  light 
upon  this  question.  No  one  will  suspect  them  who  went  forth 
months  ago  on  their  pilgrimage  of  charity,  and  traversed  the  whole 
extent  of  Ireland — none  will  suspect  them  of  hard-heartedness,  or 
of  callous  indifference  to  the  sufferings  of  their  fellow-men ;  and 
yet  let  us  hear  their  explanation  of  the  fact,  that  of  the  forty 
thousand  pounds  which  they  had  raised,  augmented  if  we  under- 
stand them  aright,  by  twelve  thousand  more,  the  sum  of  twenty- 
four  thousand  pounds  had  been  all  that  was  expended — and  this 
while  hundreds  were  dying.  "  We  cannot  close  this  brief  Report 
without  expressing  the  satisfaction  that  we  have  in  contemplating 
the  proceedings  of  the  Dublin  Committee.  We  believe  that  if 
they  had  hastily  distributed  the  money  which  had  been  committed 
to  their  charge,  it  would  have  been  incalculably  less  useful.  Some 
of  those  who  have  contributed  money  for  a  time  have  felt  uneasy 
because  their  liberality  has  been  husbanded,  whilst  hundreds  of 
their  fellow-creatures  were  dropping  into  the  grave,  but  we  be- 
lieve that  the  larger  the  acquaintance  they  have  with  Ireland,  her 
wants,  and  her  national  character,  the  more  reason  they  will  have 
to  rejoice  in  an  intervention  of  a  committee,  who,  while  they  have 
known  how  to  give,  have  known  also  how,  by  withholding  for  a 
time,  to  open  the  legitimate  springs  of  assistance,  which  other- 
wise might  have  remained  sealed,  to  the  necessities  of  a  famishing 
people."  Had  all  the  springs  of  assistance  flowed  as  they  ought, 
and  if  the  opening  of  one  had  not  had  the  effect,  as  if  by  some 

*  In  the  Longford  Journal  of  January  the  16th,  we  read  that  in  the  neighborhood 
of  Castle-town  "  the  report  of  a  Government  depot  to  be  established,  kept  back  the  com- 
mercial people,  and  the  whole  district  is  now  without  food." 


POLITICAL   ECONOMY    OF    A    FAMINE.  541 

sort  of  moral  machinery,  of  shutting  another,  the  whole  even  of 
this  stupendous  calamity  might  have  been  fully  overtaken. 

The  second  reason,  which  we  shall  only  state,  without  com- 
menting on  it,  is  the  want  of  sufficient  local  agencies  in  Ireland — 
the  effect  of  which  is  that  though  adequate  funds  were  raised, 
they  might  prove  unavailable  for  the  adequate  supply  and  distri- 
bution of  food,  and  this  over  whole  breadths  of  country  where, 
each  family  living  on  their  own  half  acre  of  potatoes,  all  market- 
ing for  victuals  was  in  a  great  measure  unknown.  This  alone  ac- 
counts for  a  great  number  of  the  starvations.  It  is  well  brought 
out  in  an  extract  given  below  from  a  letter  of  the  Rev.  F.  F. 
Trench  of  Clough-Jordan  after  a  visit  to  the  parish  of  Schull*. 

We  confess  it  to  be  in  this  last  reason  especially  that  we  read 
the  prognostication  and  the  omen  of  future,  and  perhaps  heavier 
disasters,  than  ever  have  yet  fallen  upon  poor  unhappy  Ireland  ! 
It  is  easy  for  Parliament  to  ordain  Relief  Committees  throughout 
all  its  localities  ;  but  do  there  exist  everywhere  materials  for  their 
formation,  and  still  more  for  the  vigorous  and  effectual  working 
of  them  ?  Is  not  there  room  to  apprehend  a  failure  here ;  and 
that  from  this  cause  alone,  unless  we  become  callous — itself  the 
most  grievous  moral  calamity  which  can  befall  a  nation — we  might 
still  continue  between  this  and  the  coming  harvest  to  be  agonized 
as  heretofore  by  these  hideous  starvations  ?  It  is  true  that  no  sin- 
gle Government  is  responsible  for  such  a  want  of  local  agen- 
cies, proceeding  as  it  does  from  a  state  of  society  which  is  the 
result  of  the  misgovernment  of  many  centuries  ?  But  has  nothing 
been  done  even  in  our  present  session  of  Parliament  to  aggravate 
the  evil  ?  Whether  have  they  taken  the  right  method  to  invite 
or  repel  the  willing  co-operation  of  the  most  important  class,  and 
the  best  able  by  their  position  and  influence  to  lend  the  readiest 
and  the  greatest  service  in  this  trying  emergency — the  landed 
proprietors  of  Ireland  ?  Was  it  the  likeliest  way  for  engaging 
them  heart  and  hand  in  the  work,  thus  to  assimilate,  as  has  been 
done,  the  methods  of  temporary  relief  with  the  ordinary  and  per- 

*  The  date  of  the  letter  is  March  22,  1847.  The  following  is  but  a  small  portion  of  it 
— "  Take  for  example  the  one  parish  of  Schull  (and  there  are  many  like  it).  Here  there 
are  scarcely  any  gentry,  and  none  rich.  What  can  one  physician  do  amongst  18,000 
people  in  such  a  state  (and  oats  for  his  horse  dear) "?  What  can  the  ordinary  number 
of  local  clergy  do  in  such  an  extensive  district  1  They  cannot  visit  one-tenth  part  of  the 
sick,  even  if  they  had  horses,  and  oats  to  feed  them,  which  some  of  them  have  not.  Can 
Dr.  Traill  be  expected  to  carry  meal  to  the  people  in  the  mountains  across  the  pummel 
of  his  saddle,  as  he  has  done  ^  Can  Mr.  M'Cabe,  the  curate,  be  expected  to  push  in  the 
door  and  look  for  a  vessel,  and  wash  the  vessel  previous  to  putting  a  drink  into  it  for  the 
sick,  who  were  unable  to  rise,  as  he  has  done  1  But  let  there  be  provided  a  sufficient 
staff  of  fit  men  to  prescribe  for  the  sick,  and  to  place  cooked  food  within  the  reach  of  the 
poor,  and  I  feel  confident  that  the  supply  of  money  that  the  public  have  proved  them- 
selves ready  to  give  would  pay  for  all,  and  so  prevent  absolute  starvation,  and  restore 
health  in  many  instances." 

In  a  subsequent  letter  of  Mr.  Trench  it  appears  that  his  appeal  was  quite  effectual  as 
far  as  the  money  was  concerned ;  but  the  staff  of  fit  men  still  remained  a  desideratum. 
Conceive  some  hundreds  of  such  localities  in  Ireland ;  and  we  need  not  wonder  if  in  a 
country  so  circumstanced,  there  should  have  occurred  so  many  starvations. 


542  POLITICAL    ECONOMY    OF    A    FAMINE. 

manent  methods  for  the  relief  of  the  poor  in  all  time  coming — and 
this  contemporaneously  with  the  passing  of  a  measure  by  which 
to  accelerate  tenfold  the  growth  and  increase  of  an  all-absorbing 
pauperism  ?  It  is  not  only  compelling  them  to  vote  away  their 
own  money,  but  to  dispose  of  it  so  that  it  shall  become  the  germ 
of  a  growing  and  gathering  mischief — a  deadly  upas,  which  in  a 
few  vears  will  be  sure  to  spread  its  poison  and  shed  its  malignant 
influences  over  the  whole  land.  But  it  is  thus  that  England  is 
ever  for  imposing  on  the  dependent  territories  around  her,  her 
own  wretched  poor-law — as  if  this  were  the  grand  panacea  for 
all  our  moral  and  social  disorders,  instead  of  being  what  it  truly 
is,  a  distempering  and  disturbing  influence  wherewith  to  compli- 
cate and  derange  whatever  it  comes  in  contact  with.  It  will  in- 
deed form  a  most  instructive  result,  if  in  France  without  a  poor- 
law  and  the  disadvantage  of  higher  prices  than  our  own,  she  come 
forth  of  her  famine  unscathed  and  without  a  death— while  the 
enormous  destruction  of  two  millions  of  human  beings,  now  coolly 
reckoned  on  as  the  likelihood  in  Ireland,  shall  be  held  forth  to  a 
wondering  world,  as  England's  trophy  to  the  wisdom  and  the  effi- 
cacy of  her  boasted  legislation. 

But  with  all  the  blunders  of  England's  legislation,  the  heart  of 
England  is  in  its  right  place— bent  with  full  desirousness  on  Ire- 
land's large  and  lasting  good.  We  do  hope  that  ere  the  close  of 
the  Parliamentary  Session  she  will  make  a  clear  demonstration 
of  her  purposes,  by  the  appointment  of  a  Commission  that  shall  at 
once  represent  the  largeness  of  her  wishes  and  the  largeness  of 
her  means — a  Commission  that  will  not  let  down  its  labors,  till  it 
has  left  and  established  in  both  countries,  an  unfettered  proprie- 
tary, a  secure  and  leaseholding  tenantry  ;  and,  best  of  all,  a  pop- 
ulation in  circumstances,  should  they  have  the  will,  to  earn  a  stable 
sufficiency  for  themselves  by  their  own  prosperous  and  well-paid 
industry.  In  the  prospect  of  blessings  such  as  these,  Ireland 
would  forthwith  address  itself  with  alacrity  and  hope  to  its  present 
duties  ;  and  vigorously  work  even  the  existing  Relief  machinery, 
with  all  its  defects,  rather  than  that  the  country  should  sink,  and 
its  people  die  as  heretofore  in  thousands  under  the  burden  of  their 
present  distress.  With  the  guidance  and  guardianship  of  the 
Holy  Providence  above,  a  harvest  of  good  will  ensue  from  this 
great  temporary  evil ;  and  Ireland,  let  us  trust  and  pray,  will 
emerge  from  her  sore  trial,  on  a  bright  and  peaceful  career  to  fu- 
ture generations. 

Such  are  a  few  of  the  general  views,  we  fear  somewhat  con- 
fusedly put  together,  which  have  been  suggested  by  these  inte- 
resting volumes  of  Correspondence  between  the  officials  of  Gov- 
ernment on  the  subject  of  the  Scottish  and  Irish  famines.  The 
several  hundreds  of  passages  to  which  we  had  affixed  our  notanda 
as  the  topics  of  remark  and  reflection,  must  all  be  laid  aside  for 
the  present,  though  rich  in  materials  ample  enough  for  two  other 


POLITICAL    ECONOMY    OF    A    FAMINE.  543 

Articles  on  "  the  Highlands  in  detail,"  and  "  Ireland  in  detail." 
Whether  these  shall  ever  be  forthcoming  or  not,  the  subjects  cer- 
tainly will  suffer  no  decline  in  point  of  urgency  and  importance 
for  many  months  or  perhaps  years  ;  and  on  the  vista  of  Irish 
questions  there  opens  upon  our  view  an  argument  of  as  much 
higher  importance  than  any  we  have  now  touched  upon,  as  the 
moral  is  higher  than  the  economical  or  the  physical, — what  is 
best  to  be  done  for  the  education  of  a  people,  using  this  term  in 
the  most  comprehensive  sense  of  it,  as  education  both  for  the  pres- 
ent and  the  future  world. 

In  our  dislike  to  the  work  of  condemnation,  we  have  indicated 
rather  than  pronounced  our  views  in  regard  to  the  parties  on 
whom  the  responsibility  lies  for  these  starvations  in  Ireland.  It 
clearly  does  not  lie  upon  the  Government — but  partly  on  difficul- 
ties in  the  state  of  the  country  itself,  and  partly,  we  grieve  to 
add,  on  delinquencies  of  mischievous  and  extensive  operation,  on 
the  part  both  of  proprietors  and  people.  We  will  never  give  in 
to  any  wholesale  calumny  on  either  of  these  classes ;  but  how 
can  we  otherwise  account  for  so  great  a  failure  of  bygone  meas- 
ures of  relief,  than  by  a  flagrant  misconduct  somewhere,  when 
we  read  the  following  sentences  from  a  Report  of  the  Relief  Com- 
missioners just  come  to  hand  : — "  We  feel  that  as  long  as  the  num- 
ber of  the  destitute  continue  to  increase  as  they  have  done,  at  the 
rate  of  about  20,000  persons  per  week,  and  as  long  as  every  per- 
son sent  to  the  work  must  be  employed,  and,  no  matter  how  idle, 
cannot  be  dismissed,  except  on  account  of  insubordination  or  out- 
rage, the  overseers,  the  greater  number  of  whom  have  been  ne- 
cessarily taken  from  the  surrounding  country,  are  unable,  perhaps 
sometimes  unwilling,  to  enforce  regularity  or  system  in  works 
executed  by  a  mass  of  unskilful,  and  frequently  weak  and  even 
dying  creatures." 

It  further  appears  from  Reports  and  other  documents,  that  all 
the  instructions  "  which  have  been  from  time  to  time  issued,  either 
to  reduce  the  number  of  persons  upon  the  works,  or  not  to  em- 
ploy persons  rated  at  £6  and  upwards,  and  every  other  regula- 
tion of  similar  import,  have  been  found  utterly  inefficacious  to 
check  the  inordinate  increase  of  persons  upon  the  Relief  Works, 
and  that  a  large  proportion  of  the  Relief  Committees  have  re- 
commended for  employment  upon  these  works,  in  considerable 
numbers,  persons  having  no  claim  whatever  to  relief,  and  have 
latterly  abandoned  all  attempt  to  investigate  the  claim  of  the 
applicants." 

Well  then  are  the  Lords  of  the  Treasury  warranted  in  their  con- 
clusion, "  that  all  effectual  control  over  the  increase  in  the  number 
of  persons  employed,  and  over  the  manner  in  which  the  work 
is  executed  by  them,  has,  for  the  present,  been  lost." 

In  these  circumstances  we  would  implore  the  landed  proprie- 
tors of  Ireland  to    bestir  themselves  ;  and  see  to  it,  that  there 


544  POLITICAL    ECONOMY    OF    A    FAMINE. 

shall  be  a  righteous  and  well-principled  administration  of  the  new 
methods  of  relief.  Without  a  patriotic  co-operation  on  their  part, 
and  on  the  part  of  Ireland  generally,  ali  effectual  good,  whether 
in  the  shape  of  relief  or  amelioration,  will  be  wholly  impracti- 
cable." 


illll  llil?"0""'  s"n"iHty-S 


1    1012  01147 


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